The path of humility

COLL. CHRISTI. REGK

BIB. MAJ.
TORONTO

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

SPIRITUAL PROGRESS

I. LUKEWARMNESS TO FERVOUR
II. FERVOUR TO PERFECTION

Second Editions. Our Spiritual Series.

"These two volumes are full of matters of great
importance in the spiritual life, and it is a long while
since the Catholic Press has issued two such solid
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from the large amount of matter, which, in clear type
on tinted paper, fills over 700 pages (for the two books),
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ing, and a blue-silk marker. These two works are
worth a score of small pious trivialities of the ' leaflet '
type. The second volume is specially intended for
those who are in that stage of spiritual life called the
'illuminative,' and are making good strides towards
perfection." — 77te Catholic Times*

THE PATH OF HUMILITY

NIHIL OBSTAT :

INNOCENTIDS APAP, O.P.,

Censor Deputaius.

IMPRIMATUR :

EDM. CAN. SURMONT.

Vicavius Generalis,

WESTMONASTERII

Die zjanuarii, 1920.

THE
PATH OF HUMILITY

BY THE AUTHOR OF
SPIRITUAL PROGRESS," ETC.

COLL. CHH13T! Br3!S SJL

BIS. SrtAJjft

TOflO^IO

I^earn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart,

BV

4647

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BURNS GATES & WASHBOURNE LTD.

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

THE translation of this brilliant and penetrating
study of humility has been a task of extreme delicacy
and no small difficulty. The spiritual genius of the
French is quite other than the spiritual genius of
the English; it is impossible adequately to express
the one in the terms of the other.

The translator therefore trusts that a certain uneven-
ness of literary style will be generously overlooked,
and that no one, on its account, will be deterred from
studying a work that cannot fail to have a lasting and
beneficent influence upon the whole spiritual life.

The translator also begs to tender warmest thanks
to the Rev. William Forbes-Leith, S.J., and to the
Rev. Roger Glutton, S.J., for their most kind and
valuable help in the elucidation of obscure passages,
and in the verification of texts and quotations.

CONTENTS

PACK

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE v

DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING THE BEST USE OF THESE

EXERCISES - i

A PRELIMINARY SURVEY 3

I. HUMILITY AS A SPECIAL VIRTUE - -5

II. THE GENERAL INFLUENCE OF HUMILITY - 13

FIRST WEEK : THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE - 17

First Meditation : The Divine Invitation to Humility 19

Psychological Study of Pride - - 24
Second Meditation : Of Self -Esteem and Contempt

for Others - 30

Third Meditation : On the Excessive Desire of Esteem 35

Conclusions and Summary • » 39
Fourth Meditation : Humility the Foundation of all

Virtue - 42
Fifth Meditation : The Growth of Virtue hindered

by Unconscious Pride - - * • - 47
Sixth Meditation : Humility the Guardian of the :

Virtues - - - •' 51

Seventh Meditation : The Punishment of Pride - 56

SECOND WEEK : REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE - - 63

Preparation for the Second Week - - 65

First Meditation : The Nothingness of the Creature 68

Second Meditation : The Necessity of Actual Grace 73

Third Meditation : The Necessity of Special Graces 78

Fourth Meditation : Our Condition - - 83
vii

viii CONTENTS

PAGE

Remarks on the Two preceding Meditations - 88

Fifth Meditation : Our Faults - - 90

Sixth Meditation: Prayer, Edited by Pope Urban VI 1 1. 95
Seventh Meditation : (i) In the Presence of the

Saints - • - 100

Seventh Meditation : (2) In the Presence of God - 104

THIRD WEEK : JESUS HUMBLE v - 109

Preparation for the Third Week - in
First Meditation : The Infancy and Hidden Life of

Jesus . 115

Second Meditation : Public Life - - 120
Third Meditation : Humility of the Heart of Jesus - 124
Instructions on the Three succeeding Meditations - 130
Fourth Meditation : Jesus Christ's Humility of Ab
jection - - rf- 132
Fifth Meditation : The Need for Abject Humility - 137
Sixth Meditation : Humility of Abjection — Its Mys
terious Nature - • - . • . 142
Instructions on the next Meditation - . 149
Seventh Meditation : The New Commandment— To

Place Ourselves at the Feet of All « 152

FOURTH WEEK: DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL- 159

Preparation for the Fourth WTeek - • 161

Some False Forms of Humility * - 162

I. Rational Humility - . '. * 162

II. A Narrow and Pusillanimous Humility ' - 166

III. Humility that is False in Expression - - 171

IV. A Humility that is False even in Sentiment - 175
A Glance at the Two succeeding Meditations • 182
First Meditation: Some Characteristics of True

Humility - . . . 183

CONTENTS ix

PACK

A Consideration of the Part Played by the Will and

the Feelings in Humility - - 191

Second Meditation : True Humility— -Its Effects - 194
Third Meditation : On Humility in our Relations

with God - . - 203
Fourth Meditation : On Humility in our Relations

with our Neighbour - - 208
Fifth Meditation : On the Cultivation of Exterior

Humility - - - . ^ . -212

Sixth Meditation : On the Love of Contempt - 216

Remarks on the Love of our own Abjection - - 225

Seventh Meditation : Some Precautions - 228

Prudence in Humility ... . - 232

FIFTH WEEK : TRANSFORMATION - - 243

Preparation for the Fifth Week - 245

First Meditation : The Transformation of Self- Esteem 247
Second Meditation : The Transformation of the

Desire for Esteem - >. - 253
Third Meditation : The Desire to Please and to give

Pleasure to Others - • " . * 259

A Survey of the Two succeeding Meditations - 266
Fourth Meditation : Mary transformed by her

imitation of the Humble Jesus - - - 267
Fifth Meditation: Mary transformed in the Humble

Jesus by Unity of Life - - 272

Particular Examen - . , . 277
Reflections on the Relation of Humility to Divine

Love . 278

General Examination - , . 283

Directions for the Conclusion of these Exercises - 288

Before the Tabernacle - . 289

THE PATH OF HUMILITY

DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING THE BEST
USE OF THESE EXERCISES

1. CHOOSE a time when you will be able to give
yourself to them freely and fully.

2. A whole month should be set apart for them, or
more if you are so inclined. There is ample matter for
two exercises a day. What is called a study, or
explanation, may be used as a meditation, and in
every case should be read with the greatest attention.

3. Mark your entrance upon this great work of
reformation by some special acts of oblation and devo
tion. The evening before pay a visit to the church
expressly for this purpose. Kneel before Jesus so
humble in the Tabernacle. Recite slowly the " Veni
Creator." Next, direct your steps to the altar of the
Blessed Virgin. You may also invoke those Saints
whose humility has most impressed you — S. Francis,
S. Anthony of Padua, S. Francis de Sales, S. Vincent
de Paul — and beg them to obtain for you light, good
will, and perseverance.

II

i. During the exercises, endeavour to preserve
within yourself a feeling of humility, especially in

2 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

your intercourse with others ; deepen this sentiment by
frequent aspirations throughout the day; you will
find matter for them in each meditation, and more
especially in the Resolution or spiritual bouquet at the
end of each. Depart as little as possible from this
attitude of soul.

2. Make use also of exterior acts of abasement.
Kiss the ground (if no one else is present); pray
with the head bowed, in the posture of a guilty person
full of confusion; speak in a quiet and restrained
manner, and walk with less freedom. Try also to
cultivate a spirit of poverty.

3. Seek occasions of obedience and of showing
kindness, but do all with great simplicity. Do not
contradict, argue, or dispute. Accept trials and con
tradictions as things fully deserved.

NOTE.— Use these three last suggestions, or one of them,
as a daily subject for the particular examen.

A PRELIMINARY SURVEY

HUMILITY ! The whole Christian tradition exalts it,
and every pious soul is ambitious to acquire it. Jesus,
by associating it with His sufferings, raised it to the
level of the Cross, and placed it as an aureole around
the Blessed Sacrament.

Where there is no humility there is little virtue, for
God only enters a soul in which humility makes room
for Him.

But it is not enough to praise and admire this virtue,
we must have light and full conviction if we are to
make it our own. Our ideas and our consciences need
illumination, for if the nature of humility is little
known, still less is the range of its influence under
stood.

The meditations in this book are meant for those
who seriously wish to understand, and for pious souls
who are eager to make progress.

Great things are always deeply hidden; precious
metals are found buried in the earth ; prodigious forces
sleep in quiet matter; marvellous mechanical powers
are at work in the silent movement of the stars, and in
the depths of living beings we catch sight of secrets so
profound that they are inexplicable.

And when we come to the examination of humility
we see that it is a supernatural virtue whose depths are
infinite.

3

4 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Virtue considered as a whole is a living organism,
and each particular virtue is one of its members. Each
has its own special beauty, but it is also clothed with
the beauty of its sisters, because of the unity of their
life and their dependence upon one another. Some
virtues, however, participate in that life in a more
intimate, full, and continuous manner; the same life
animates each part of the whole, even the meanest, but
it cannot expand and flourish there in the same degree.
We are about to study the part assigned to humility ;
perhaps we shall discover a humility that we have
never known before.

In order to proceed with confidence we must be
thorough and methodical. We cannot reach the
heights without first traversing an uninteresting region
where there will be certain obstacles to overcome. To
make the way less tedious we will have recourse to
various means : the study of general outlines ; short
explanations which will lighten obscure points ; reflec
tions which will throw into relief the results of a
discovery ; and, above all, searching meditations which
will bathe the soul in the atmosphere of truth — under
the bright sunshine of grace.

Let no soul of goodwill be discouraged with the
thought that these heights of truth are ur ittainable ;
let them rather remember the help they will receive
from Heaven. Human science is confined to experts ;
the science of God is poured out upon the little and
the humble, and these do not always need long and
tedious reasonings. If they find parts of this book
unintelligible to them, they need not be saddened or
hindered on their way. The light is awaiting them,
perhaps at a corner of the road, in a form more simple

A PRELIMINARY SURVEY 5

but just as full of truth. To such souls some tiny word
will at times come as a revelation.

Now we will make a rapid survey of the way along
which we are to travel in this book. It will be sufficient
to cast a glance first upon humility as a special virtue,
and then upon the sphere of its influence.

L— HUMILITY AS A SPECIAL VIRTUE
I. — PRIDE is ONLY THE DEVIATION OF TWO PERFECTLY

LEGITIMATE TENDENCIES

PRIDE exhibiting itself as a sense of superiority and a
wish to shine may be nothing more than the recollec
tion of our original greatness. If so, it is only wrong
because out of place. A king deposed through his own
fault, and proud in his misfortune — "a fallen god
remembering heaven " — such, in that case, would man
appear in his inclination to pride.

But pride as a disorder and a vice should rather be
regarded as the stigma of a vanquished rebel than as
the imprint of a lost crown. Eritis sicut dii. Thus
temptation to pride becomes a trouble inherited in the
blood, and this double origin may explain at the same
time what is good in it and what is evil.

It is, however, more correct to regard this fault as a
deviation from useful sentiments implanted by God
Himself in human nature. In a final analysis these
sentiments are reduced to two : self-esteem, and the
desire for the esteem of others. Self-esteem is the basis
of personal dignity ; the desire for the esteem of others
is one of the bases of social life.

These sentiments are so deeply rooted and so spon
taneous that they pertain in a measure to the category

6 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

of instincts, and resemble those of self-preservation.
They have, besides, functions of a similar nature ; the
instinct of life attaches man to an existence not always
happy; that of self-esteem attaches him to his own
personality, though it may not be worth much; while
the desire for the esteem of others attaches him to the
public weal despite the meagreness of the benefits it
offers.

These two latter propensities are subject to devia
tions so easy and natural that they seem to bear the
impress of the original fall. This is why the moralists
often stigmatise them both indiscriminately as a vice.

II. — HUMILITY is THE VIRTUE CHARGED WITH THE
MISSION OF COMBATTING THESE DEVIATIONS

" It is she who tempers the spirit and prevents it
from exalting itself unduly."* It is humility that must
regulate and temper self-esteem and the desire for the
esteem of others.

Humility is thus both truth and justice. Under the
title of truth, it undertakes to direct us ; under the title
of justice, it inclines us to act conformably with such
direction.!

As truth it resides in the intellect; as justice it dwells
in the will. Now these two faculties act one upon the
other, so that an increase of light not only enables the
motives and rules of humility to be better understood,
but also aids in their fulfilment.

Our meditations must, then, be directed towards

* S. Thomas.

f The word " justice " is used here in a wide sense, and
means the virtuous disposition which assures to each thing
its proper place, in the same manner as justice in its strict
sense adjusts the rights of men.

A PRELIMINARY SURVEY 7

improving the condition of these two faculties. The
most favourable condition of the will is inclination.

Two kinds of light produce conviction : the light of
reason and that of revelation. Two forces produce
inclination : desire and actual grace. We shall be
wise if we avail ourselves of all these helps at one and
the same time, but those of the supernatural order,
since they are the highest, are the most effectual.

To rest satisfied with the light of reason in deter
mining the esteem we deserve would be to establish an
incomplete and insufficient virtue.

To attempt to acquire humility in our own strength
would lead to nothing but disappointment.

The pagans knew humility only in the guise of
modesty, and what they knew they practised very im
perfectly. The true conception of this virtue emanates
from our fundamental dogmas, and its perfect practice
depends upon grace; it is therefore eminently super
natural, and thus understood the rationalist can neither
conceive nor practise it.

We must, however, allow full scope to the natural
faculties in the acquisition of this virtue, and in order
clearly to understand the meaning of this observation,
it will be well at this point to call to mind a few general
ideas on the natural and the supernatural virtues.

Their object is the same — goodness; and both
classes of the same virtue have the same special object
— the same sort of goodness. Thus humility, whether
natural or supernatural, regulates self-esteem and the
desire for praise.

These virtues reside in the same faculties, which are,
in both cases, the natural faculties. Natural virtues
penetrate them, supernatural virtues elevate them.

8 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

But they are totally different in their mode of pro
duction and exercise.

The supernatural virtues are put into us by a species
of creation, which Theology calls infusion ; thus, super
natural virtue is synonymous with infused virtue. God
pours such virtues into the soul of the baptised infant,
and He pours them all in at the same time. The
increase of one is the increase of all, and, with the
exception of faith and hope, all may be lost together
by mortal sin. Again, all are together revived by the
recovery of grace.

The natural virtues, on the contrary, are acquired
slowly by numerous acts, and they are only lost little
by little, so that a mortal sin does not destroy them.
The term habitual can thus only be applied to the
latter. Inclination, strength, facility are acquired little
by little, as in a limb which is exercised for a certain
purpose.

With the supernatural virtues increase comes from
without, and not by development ; and in their case a
degree of growth does not necessarily correspond with
any increase of strength or inclination.

Theologians sum up this difference in two peculiar
expressions. The infused virtues, they say, give the
sim-pliciter posse, the simple power — what might be
called aptitude; while habit gives the iadliter posse,
or facility. Actual grace also gives it, but in a transi
tory manner.

A comparison will make these distinctions clear. A
fabric may be fine or coarse, of close or open texture ;
it becomes purple when it is put into a special bath.
The bath has not changed its nature in any way ; the
fabric remains fine or coarse, close or open, but it ranks

A PRELIMINARY SURVEY 9

in a higher order. Its worth and its use are no longer
the same. But treat it with a chemical which deprives
it of its colour, and once more it becomes a common
fabric.

The supernatural virtues elevate our being from the
natural to the supernatural order; they transform our
faculties and communicate to them along with a special
beauty, an aptitude — but only an aptitude — to pro
duce supernatural acts. Activity will come from actual
graces, from dispositions of the will, and from habits.

We see from this that, generally speaking, in adults,
virtue costs effort.

Supernatural virtues are not intended to render the
natural forces inactive, or to replace them, but to
elevate, to complete, and to sustain them.

By their presence they raise them to the supernatural
order, and they complete and sustain them by the
actual graces that they attract.

These actual graces offer us inestimable resources;
God multiplies them a hundredfold in the soul that
corresponds to them, and prayer induces Him to give
them prodigally, without desert and without measure.
Under their all-powerful influence virtuous acts are
multiplied and accomplished with fervour; the natural
faculties which produce them are improved and
developed, and finally acquire inclination and facility
for similar acts, and the state of habitual virtue is thus
realised.

NOTE. — More complete explanations will be found in the
book entitled " Spiritual Progress," by the same author.

io THE PATH OF HUMILITY

III— THE IMPORTANCE OF CONVICTION TO HUMILITY

It is not so easy to distinguish, even theoretically,
between pride and personal dignity.

Care for our reputation — the duty of keeping our
rank or defending our principles — authorises a great
many actions which may appear to ill-informed minds
to be prompted by pride. And pride, on the other
hand, may avail itself of these delicate precautions.

But considered in practice the distinction be
comes even more difficult. In fact, nothing is so
deceptive as this vice; it disguises and transforms
itself, it slowly grows and spreads ; when it has finally
taken possession, it is scarcely noticed, and when
noticed, it is excused.

Pride does not appear horrible. Its ugliness and
malice strike us less than the ugliness and malice of
other vices. It appears less dangerous to us, because,
among Christians, pride rarely becomes a mortal sin,
and because few of us carry this fault to extremes.
Yet, nevertheless, its pernicious influence is such that
the Saints call it the father of all the vices.

It is therefore necessary to impress upon our minds
such a clear conviction as may excite in us a horror of
pride, and induce us to rid ourselves of it.

A conviction of this kind is not virtue, but it includes
it in the same manner as physical forces are found,
ready for use, in their elements. Also, it is not to be
acquired by vague, feeble, or exaggerated assertions.
Let us try to reach the root jf the matter beneath
the overgrowth of conventional phrases which cluster
about it.

A PRELIMINARY SURVEY 11

At the same time we must not trust too much to the
results of our own researches, nor our own analyses;
God alone is the Doctor of humility, — " He reveals it
to little ones." " Revelasti ea parvulis"

IV.— THE VALUE TO HUMILITY OF INCLINATION

Pride, so difficult to recognise, is still more difficult
to conquer. Its roots are buried deep in our nature;
its vitality is extreme; it springs up again when we
supposed it dead ; it nourishes itself on little, yet it is
never satisfied.

Therefore, if we are to conquer it we must establish
within ourselves the habit of humility, opposing this
habit in daily, ceaseless conflict with the contrary
tendency we cannot wholly eradicate.

And how can we acquire and develop this habit
which is so repugnant to nature ? Only by exercise.

Action — action, this is the great secret, this is the
imperative need. Comprehension and conviction are
the advance-guard — they clear the way ; but it is the
army which achieves the victory, the army of deeds,
and especially of generous deeds. By these and these
alone can humility be firmly established within us.

This means warfare. We must bow to the will of
others, even when they are unreasonable. We must be
kind to those who slight us. We must welcome every
humiliation. Nature will rebel, but, governed by a
resolute humility, she will employ her strength in self-
conquest, and find her happiness in humbling herself
with Jesus. Miht absit gloriari nisi in cruce Jesu
Christi.

And while awaiting the trials that life may hold in

12 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

store for us, we have at our command, as a preparation
for them, the inexhaustible resource both of interior
and exterior acts.

Numberless interior acts (desires, resolutions,
prayers, acceptances, etc.) may be made ; and if they
are fervent nothing can withstand them; the whole
soul should be put into these efforts, and this is the
exercise we must strive to make during these medita
tions.

Exterior acts should not be neglected, for they
give reality to our feelings. Why should we not
employ them even during prayer ? The humble atti
tude of a sinner, a suppliant, a beggar, will help us, and
sometimes it is useful to kiss the ground.

By all these means, employed continuously for some
time, our sentiments become something more than a
mere assent of the intellect to the truth, or a simple
determination of the will to embrace justice; this
assent and this determination become habits rooted
deeply and firmly within us.

These are a permanent force, giving facility, move
ments, and even relish ; for it is in the nature of every
force to incite to action, and to give satisfaction by its
free exercise.

Let us, then, embark upon this enterprise with
courage; making every effort, and counting upon the
aid of grace.

If we are to become humble we must be convinced
and resolute, we must reflect and we must pray.

A PRELIMINARY SURVEY 13

II— THE GENERAL INFLUENCE OF
HUMILITY

The influence of humility may be deduced from its
very nature. We have seen that it is truth and
justice; now truth illumines the mind, and justice rules
the moral nature, and these comprise the whole man.

I. Humility is truth. — -This is an accepted and
constantly reiterated phrase, but yet it is often dimly
understood. Truth ! truth ! it sounds very beautiful,
but what truth is it that we are seeking here ? It is the
truth about ourselves. And how shall we learn it?
By remembering that we are created beings, sinful
beings, and beings who are participators in the divine
life.

These are great truths, which cannot be apprehended
by themselves. Before I can apprehend the created, I
must first apprehend the Creator ; before I can realise
the heinousness of sin, I must first realise something
of the rights and dignity of Him Whom I have
offended ; before I can grasp the amazing truth of that
extraordinary phrase : " Participation in the divine
life," I must learn something of the whole wondrous
scheme of grace and glory.

In my search for truth I find God on every side, and
if I am to understand myself I must know something
of Him ; I find Him in my origin and in my destiny, in
the depths of my soul, and in my outward acts; if I
seek to rid myself of Him I annihilate myself, and, on
the other hand, I ennoble myself beyond measure if I
open my heart to all that He is longing to give me.

From these suggestive contrasts spring two senti-

14 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

ments most valuable to my spiritual life: humility,
from the consideration of what I am; adoration, from
the contemplation of Him by Whom I am.

This double view embraces the whole truth; each
part of the truth is seen in its right place and due
proportion, and I am illumined by the most beautiful
light that this world knows — the light of the Infinite
enlightening the finite.

II. Humility is justice. — As truth, humility leads us
to the beautiful; as justice, she leads us to the good.
In establishing true relations between God and man,
truth lays the foundations of justice; but in teaching
us duty justice makes of truth a moral virtue. Now
duty may be expressed as universal submission.
Universal submission is the acceptance of every law,
resignation in every trial, fidelity to every inspiration ;
by it God controls all our actions, and directs them to
Himself, thus satisfying all the claims of justice. While
He supplies the initiative of the Prime Mover, we
render the obedience of the individual and free but
subordinated being.

Let divine love, daughter of truth and justice, warm
with its rays this faithful humility, and universal sub
mission becomes universal love — grateful love to the
supreme Benefactor, complacent love for the adored
Being, benevolent love for the God Who wishes to
receive something from us, zealous love for the advance
ment of His glory among men.

We can understand now why justice sums up the
whole of virtue, and why, in the Scriptures, the Saints
are called the just. Humility opens wide the gate that
leads to perfection.

III. Humility the transformer. — May it not be pos-

A PRELIMINARY SURVEY 15

sible to give to the two sentiments of which humility
has the regulation and direction — self-esteem and
the desire for praise— a higher aim than is usually
theirs ?

They are a force, and all force contains the latent
power of movement. Man masters the torrent, and
draws from it the amazing marvels of electricity. Let
us, then, master our lively sentiment of personal esteem
and the no less lively desire for the esteem of others,
and direct their activity towards a more lofty end.
Give them nobler objects of attainment, better rewards
to win, and this sublimer aim will carry them beyond
the reach of pride.

To this high effort at self-education every religious
truth, every pious sentiment, every grace from on high,
will give their aid, and this work will be the crown of
humility. Better still, it will delight the Heart of God,
and will give to ours a divine peace, and, it may be, an
unexpected joy.

May Jesus, God made Man, appear to me, my
vSaviour, my Friend, my Brother, my Life; may He
enlighten me by His example; may He exalt me to
Himself by the power of His attraction, that I may
share the life of God incarnate, which, in all its mani
festations, is a life of humility ; here there is unbounded
scope for my legitimate ambitions ; this is the heavenly
road for which we need wings, the wings of love.

We will follow it with the most perfect of creatures,
Mary, who was transformed by the humble Jesus.

O holy light ! O warm affection ! O penetrating
grace from on high ! I desire you, I call you to invade
my soul that opens itself to your influence. I am not
humble, and the world is steeped in pride.

i6 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

O holy humility ! Perhaps I have not known you
hitherto except by name.

O Mary, teach me the humility of Jesus; I feel that
it contains a hidden sweetness ; oh ! make me taste it,
then, at last, I shall love humility — or rather, I shall
love humiliation.

FIRST WEEK
THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE

FIRST MEDITATION

THE DIVINE INVITATION TO HUMILITY
" Sicut Parvuli "

First point : Pride as an innate and fatal propensity.

Second point : Humility the reforming virtue.

Third point : Humility the source of celestial favours.

Evening Preparation. — Before commencing the
rather dry series of meditations which are intended to
lay a well-reasoned foundation for humility, let us first
conjure up a gentler vision of this virtue.

The Divine Master shows it to us in the guise of a
little open-faced child. It is no more than a glimpse,
but this glimpse admirably shows us the features of
a humble soul — without, no affectation; within, no
pretence; only a beautiful simplicity of outlook and
attitude.

This native simplicity in a child is without merit as
it is without duration ; but what the child possesses in
happy ignorance, we should make our own by effort.

The child seems still to retain a reflection of
primitive innocence. This pure reflection, this beauti
ful transparency, is the ideal to pursue. We have
besides a far more complete and perfect ideal proposed
to us : " Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of
heart " ; the work of humility will be wrought in us if
we faithfully copy the Masterpiece.

Then make your heart ready and docile ; what Jesus
teaches must be true, and what He asks must be good.

19

20 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Oh ! Jesus, show me to-morrow, as Thou didst to
thine Apostles, that little child who is to be my model,
and in its features may I see Thine !

MEDITATION

tl When they were in the house Jesus asked them :
What did you treat of in the way ? But they held their
peace, for in the way they had disputed among them
selves, which of them should be the greatest. . . . And
sitting down He called the twelve. . . . And taking a
child, He set him in the midst of them. Whom, when
He had embraced, He saith to them : Amen, amen, I
say unto you, unless you be converted and become as
little children — sicut parvuli — you shall not enter into
the kingdom of heaven. . . . Whosoever receiveth one
such child in My name receiveth Me. . . . For he that
is lesser among you all, he is the greater."

FIRST PRELUDE. — Let us imagine the road which
runs from Tabor to Capharnaum. The Saviour walks
in front; the Apostles follow Him. Watch their faces
animated by the discussion, listen to their pretentious
words, the dubious arguments that pass between them.

All through life pride thus occupies and agitates
mankind.

Let us enter the house behind Jesus. Mark the
twelve as they gather round Him; and, at a distance,
the little child watching them with a naive curiosity.

SECOND PRELUDE.— Let us ask for grace to under
stand this important lesson of humility, reflecting upon
each word as if it fell fresh from the Divine Master's
lips for us alone.

I. Pride as an innate and fatal propensity. — Let us

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 21

consider the strength of this propensity and its imme
diate consequences. It appears in men of low estate
and simple habits. It dwells in souls formed by the
Saviour Himself. God has not eradicated it in the
souls of the Apostles, who are destined for the highest
virtue. Who then is free from it ?

Let us see the consequences. It provokes bitter con
troversy among the Apostles. It entirely occupies and
fills their minds. It makes them indifferent to the
presence of their Master. They withdraw themselves
from Jesus, deprive themselves of His conversation,
avoid His gaze, and to what end ? And does not pride
produce the same effects in us : dissensions, trouble,
and a weakening of piety ?

II. Humility the reforming virtue. — Let us weigh
well each of the Saviour's words : Nisi converti fueritis
— " Unless you be converted." Then I am not to
remain what I am by nature, by inclination, or even by
habit. I must be different; the proud must become
humble. And this is an express, necessary, and abso
lute condition : " Nisi." Without that, I can have no
place in the kingdom of heaven.

Et efidamini: To remake self, whatever the diffi
culties and repugnances; time and patience will be
necessary, for one cannot remake oneself in a day.

Sicut parvuli. This is the essential thing. The little
child is my model ; let me humble myself, make myself
little, believe that I am little; and then I must act in
accordance with this opinion. There must be no
hauteur or disdain, no ambition, and no seeking for
precedence, none of the preoccupations and disturb
ances of self-love. Like the little child, I must be
simple, confident, docile, good, without pretence or

22 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

affectation; following the teaching of the Saviour, I
must make myself not only little but quite little : Sicut
parvulL

What a tender as well as a humbling phrase ! Non
intrabitis in regnum ccelorum : " You shall not enter
the kingdom of heaven."

Let us meditate upon the various meanings of this
sentence. The kingdom of God is peace of soul, and I
long for such peace ; it is perfection, and this is what I
am striving for; it is eternal happiness, and this is what
I aspire to. It is the mission of humility to assure all
these good things to me.

0 Jesus, if I will consent to make myself quite small,
I shall achieve this glorious destiny.

III. Humility the source of celestial favours. —
Source of greatness. — Statuit eum in medio eorum.
Jesus places the little child in the midst of the Apostles,
in the place of honour, and He explains His action in
these words : " Whosoever, therefore, shall humble him
self as this little child, the same is greatest in the
kingdom of heaven " ; erit major. If the last judgment
is to bestow on us this position, we must deserve it here
on earth ; then it will be ours in the eyes of God.

Oh ! how our judgments deceive us. What strange
changes of rank there would be if the light of truth
could pierce our darkness !

Humility — source of consolation. — Quern cum
complexus esset : Jesus embraces the little child. What
a joyous privilege to be the object of divine caresses !
Happy child, to whom greatness lovingly stoops ! If
this child had not been quite little Jesus would not
have embraced it.

1 complain of interior desolation; I scarcely know

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 23

what consolation is, Jesus does not put His arms
around rne, nor press me to His heart. Why ? Why ?
Is He less kind now ? or am I too big ? Yes, perhaps
so, by my pretensions. Oh ! I prefer to be little and
to be loved. All the satisfaction of self-love are as
nothing compared with a caress from Jesus.

Humility, the principle of success. — Qui sus-
ceperit talem in nomine meo me suscipit. Jesus chooses
from among men him who resembles this little child.
He declares that He will Himself receive him. Who
then will not hasten to open to Jesus his dwelling, his
arms, and his heart? I shall be among these privi
leged ones, if I will make myself little.

God, as if in order to render His injunctions easy,
makes humility a gift that pleases. The humble man
seems to carry with him a sense of security and delight.
We feel, we know not why, that he could not slight nor
wound us. Whether he speaks or listens, there is
always the same self-effacement, and the same wish to
see others shine. What he asks is accorded willingly ;
nothing arouses in him those repulsions which are a
sign of pride. Is this a radiance of soul ? or a privilege
of grace ? or is it a fleeting apparition of Jesus ? Qui
receperit talem me recipit. . . . Oh ! how I ought to
wish to make myself little !

RESOLUTION.— To be a little child that Jesus may
love me.

24 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF PRIDE

A PREPARATION FOR THE TWO FOLLOWING
MEDITATIONS

We commonly give the name of "pride" to two
faults which, however, are of a different nature:
excessive self-esteem, and the excessive desire for the
esteem of others. They have neither the same origin
nor the same characteristics, neither the same mode of
action nor the same effects.

The undue esteem of self is connected with the sense
of personal dignity, of which it is a vicious exaggera
tion ; and the desire for the esteem of others with our
social instinct. This last is only pernicious when it
induces us to seek a higher place than is our due, or
when it arouses an excessive desire for it.

The common appellation of pride, given indiffer
ently to these two faults, is authorised, in that they
both have for their object the exaltation of the me;
the first overrates self in its own eyes, the second
wishes to be overrated by others.

In spite of this resemblance, these two tendencies
should be studied separately if we wish to be in a
position to analyse ourselves thoroughly, and to
direct ourselves rightly. It is because essential dis
tinctions have been ignored that most of the treatises
on this subject are full of confused teaching, arbitrary
qualifications, and ill-adapted methods.

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 25

II

Are we called upon to declare against these two
propensities a war so pitiless as to threaten their
destruction? Humility does not seek to destroy
persorral dignity nor the desire of esteem, but only to
regulate these sentiments; she does not crush them;
on the contrary, she raises them, for in freeing them
from all excess, she maintains them in all their beauty,
strength, and usefulness.

In itself, indeed, self-esteem is perfectly legiti
mate ; it has been placed by God in our nature in order
to sustain our personality, to give us a consciousness
of the justice of our ideas, of our powers, and of our
rights.

Without it, many would fall a prey to that condition
of enervation in which we do not know how to set
about a perilous undertaking, nor to defend what is
attacked; and it is a just self-esteem that communicates
the confidence which alone secures, to their great
profit, the obedience of subordinates.

Under its influence, the pious soul, admiring
Christian perfection, becomes desirous of attaining
this exalted state. She burns for the glory of God,
and thus sets her affections upon the highest object
which the ambition of a great heart can pursue.

The desire of esteem is also an honest and helpful
sentiment; it is a mark of consideration towards
others, a kind of submission to their judgment.
Thanks to it, many people, who are not animated by
supernatural motives, rise without effort to generous
and devoted actions, which otherwise they would
neglect or never even think of. By it many are kept to

26 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

their duty, and others, under its influence, learn a
greater tenderness in their dealings with others.

Reason then demands, not that we should destroy
this sentiment, but that we should subordinate and
direct it, for when it is governed by lofty ideals it lends
a certain attractiveness to virtue. We all like to feel
that the esteem we offer is valued, and we are instinc
tively drawn to those who give us this pleasure.

The human element of course remains a principle of
change — experience shows it only too well ; but at the
same time it imparts a spontaneity that renders action
both easy to the doer and more agreeable to those
concerned.

The desire for honour seems to belong more to this
second propensity, for an honourable reputation is
synonymous with public esteem. This kind of honour
has its own laws and its own recompenses ; we submit
ourselves to the first and aspire to the second. But he
who seeks for honour solely to enjoy it cannot be said
to be virtuous, since the love of goodness for its own
sake should be the first motive power of our efforts.
If we make public esteem our rule of life we are foolish,
for public opinion is a very unreliable judge.

Though honour is exterior to us, in the minds
of others, it may enter into us and reign over our
conscience. Then, more sensitive to honour than to
homage, we shall consult principles rather than
opinion, and to public esteem we shall prefer our own.
Here we are in the province of the first tendency,
which concerns our personal dignity.

The desire for esteem sees honour as a social good,
of which it desires a part, but self-esteem as a good
that is ours by right.

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 2;

We cannot deny that honour has a happy influence
on social life and on individual perfection. If it is
accompanied by lofty principles, it lends them a firm
support and receives from them a higher direction;
and even without them it at least maintains a measure
of stability, and imparts a certain lustre.

Honour being the result of opinion, and opinion the
result of ideas which prevail in certain circles, we can
imagine to what heights a group of men, or a people,
might rise under the influence of the truths of the
faith.

Ill

It is not sin which has planted these two inclinations
in our nature, they have always been there; sin only
causes excess and creates for them external dangers.
They come from God ; so they are good in themselves,
and remain good in their exercise so long as they are
restrained within certain limits; and it is humility
that provides for this.

When we see virtuous people setting themselves
to a complete and indiscriminate repression of these
tendencies, perhaps it is because, unconsciously, they
are tired of the struggle, for it is very much easier to
destroy a force than to maintain it constantly at its
proper level.

This mutilation is generally the result of a certain
narrowness of mind, and it produces unfortunate
results. It leaves the soul dry, the mind uncertain,
and it communicates to the exterior manner something
artificial and constrained which brings virtue into dis
credit.

28 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

IV

We commonly hear it said that pride arises from
self-esteem, while vanity is the outcome of the desire
for esteem. This is not quite just, for, on the one
hand, it is vanity when we esteem ourselves for some
paltry advantage, and, on the other hand, it is not
vanity when the desire for esteem prompts us to render
eminent services. The epithet of vanity should not
then be applied to the tendency, but rather to its
object. Inherited wealth, elegance of dress or estab
lishment, add nothing to our real worth. Beauty,
natural wit, even intelligence, are not merits, but gifts ;
yet notice this very humiliating trait in human nature :
when it is a matter of fortune or of toil we are more
conceited about what we have freely received than
about what we have acquired by effort ; a self-made
man is eclipsed by a rich heir, and a student by an
easy wit. All this is vanity ! Vanity too the desire
for an esteem that is little deserved, and that in any
case is always ephemeral.

There are great ambitions as there are great
characters. Great ambitions show themselves in
powerful efforts and prompt the performance of
splendid deeds; great characters also betray them
selves in similar fashion, but with a different motive.
The first are attracted by renown, the second find their
incentive in their own dignity. Renown is exterior to
ourselves, dignity dwells within.

These two motives may be tainted with pride with
out meriting the reproach of vanity ; but vanity is the
characteristic of both when they are debased.

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 29

Let us now sum up the whole of this doctrine :
The work of humility is to regulate the sentiments of
self-esteem and the desire for the esteem of others.

This definition applies equally to the merely human
as well as to the supernatural virtue of humility. Both
teach us that there must be no excess. Where they
differ is in their estimate of this excess. Simply
human virtue looks to reason only for this estimate.
Supernatural virtue also seeks it there, but it is more
clearly defined to it by the dogmas of faith. We are
in the sad state of the original fall : our absolute need
of grace and of mercy is a revealed truth which changes
the point of view, and imposes a more profound and
penitent humility.

The example of Jesus is the means of our education,
presenting to us His ideal, in which a supernatural-
humility is displayed.

In the following meditations we shall find this
heavenly light, and motives for a more than merely
human humility. Let us ask ourselves whether we
have yet acquired even the simple humility demanded
by reason.

The differences existing between the two sentiments
generally known as pride show the necessity of par
ticular directions for the regulation of each.

They differ as much in their moral physiognomy as
in their inmost nature. He who is dominated by self-
esteem has a different personality from that of him
who is governed by the desire of esteem. They are two
different natures, which reveal themselves to the prac
tised observer by certain scarcely perceptible traits, as

3o THE PATH OF HUMILITY

the inspection of a bone may enable a naturalist to
reconstruct the whole of a certain animal.

Let us each take care to determine beforehand to
which one of the two categories we belong, if we wish
to draw from the ensuing meditations the greatest
possible benefit Neither the way nor the means are
the same, and the reshaping of such-and-such a
nature demands a different method. General con
ditions and general means are indicated to all, but
each must direct their application to his special end.

SECOND MEDITATION
EXERCISE II

OF SELF-ESTEEM AND CONTEMPT FOR OTHERS

First point : To prove the existence of this tendency.
Second point : Its weaknesses.
Third point : Its contradictions.
Fourth point : Its dangers.

Evening Preparation. — This kind of pride shows
itself, according to circumstances, either in a pro
pensity to domineer over others, or in a spirit of inde
pendence that may even go so far as rebellion. It is
selfish and exacting when, as is frequently the case, it
is allied with egotism. Its manners are good, but stiff.
It will be just, but hard. In men of lax principles it
may be a power but a vicious power, and it is more
often to be met with in men than in women.

Have I not some one of the characteristics of this
kind of pride ? Pride is so easily disguised, and we
know ourselves so- little ! What we have always been,

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 31

always done, always felt, ends by appearing to be law
ful, however imperfect. We have seen how prone we all
are to overrate ourselves. Am I an exception to this
rule ? We may be proud without having every kind of
pride, and even a small degree of pride is dangerous.
Besides, we are subject to many illusions produced
from without, though there may be little in our circum
stances to call for pride.

Praise, or even common respect, makes us believe in
our own superiority, and we readily take to ourselves
what is due to the part God gives us to play.

To-morrow I shall probe those dark hiding-places
where pride lurks, but I am too short-sighted to be
able to penetrate their obscurities without the aid of
Thy heavenly light, O my God. It is by Thy grace
alone that I can come to know myself.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace of illumination and
sincere conviction.

I. To prove the existence of this tendency. — Let us
consider the inclination that leads us to overrate our
selves (super bio). Consciously or unconsciously it
exists and works incessantly in our minds, seeking to
discover something upon which we may pride our
selves ; an instinctive toil like that of the plant which
endeavours to plunge its roots among the rocks, and
so natural that the work goes on without our know
ledge and without producing fatigue.

Let us follow the process; it attaches its attention
to and fixes it upon the qualities that it attributes to
itself ; it contemplates them, it pleases itself with them,
and nourishes itself upon them. This persistent regard

32 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

produces an indelible impression on the mind. On the
other hand, it gives but a fleeting glance at what is
imperfect, base, or humiliating, and the impression of
this glimpse is soon effaced, not counteracting but
rather strengthening our self-esteem.

Neither is there any truth in such a survey, for we
have recorded only one side of the inquiry.

2. Its weaknesses. — If we are gifted with external
advantages, though they may be nothing out of the
common, we prize them above everything else. But if
intelligence is our gift, then we despise the former. If
we have more head than heart, we congratulate our
selves, and sincerely commiserate those whose excess
of kindness makes them the prey of those cleverer than
themselves. But if we possess more heart than head
we speak slightingly of ability.

In the matter of intelligence, we prize that with
which we are best endowed. If our mind is subtle but
wanting in solidity, we ask : What is there in having
a heavy brain ? If on the other hand it is more solid
than brilliant, we cry : What are mere empty phrases ?
If we are successful, it is no more than we deserve ; but
if we have experienced a set-back, we have been un
fairly treated. And so on and so on. Let us humble
ourselves for such unworthy and ridiculous weak
nesses.

3. Its contradictions. — We have indeed often been
made keenly aware of our inferiority, and the dis
covery has caused us suffering. But at once we under
take to eliminate it, and pursuing the work relentlessly
contrive to reconstruct for ourselves some sort of
superiority, sometimes by dint of despising what has
surpassed us. Apparent contradiction but the same

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 33

defect : I have a greater esteem for the things that are
mine : pride is satisfied. To esteem what is lacking in
me discourages me : pride suffers.

The contradictions of pride may be seen in the same
man. Sometimes with regard to the same object.
Finding himself among people better educated than
himself he will say with ardent conviction : " Ah !
piety is the better part." But let him find himself
with those more virtuous than himself and at once, if
he thinks he excels them in it, quite a new respect for
knowledge will show itself.

Let us examine our feelings and actions in such
circumstances, and let us seek energetically to root out
our pride and its tiresome contradictions.

4. Its dangers. — Nothing is easier than to render
homage to God for all that we are. " It is to Thee,
O my God, that I owe my talents and my success."
It is an accepted formula, but it does not prevent pride
from indulging in vanity and self-complacence. It
dispels heretical pride, which is not really a great
danger, but it does not make us sincerely turn away
from ourselves.

Confident in himself, the proud man does not care
to ask counsel, he disdains advice, he rebels against
well-deserved failure and aggravates it, and thus falls
into errors of conduct.

Clinging to his own ideas, he persists in them, with
out paying any attention to the advice of others, and
thus he becomes stubborn.

Opposition irritates him, he gives way to vexatious
words, and, his heart growing embittered, he loses
charity.

The proud man betrays himself by his attitude, his

3

34 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

tone, his expressions ; at times he even makes himself
ridiculous.

One will praise him extravagantly to see how much
flattery he will swallow. Another will encourage him
in a mistaken course, in order to enjoy his discomfiture.
Another will egg him on to self-praise, that he
may make himself an object of derision : a pitiful
vengeance.

Lord, may this time of probation open my eyes, and
arm me with holy anger against a proclivity so
tenacious, so hidden, and so dangerous !

Reflections. — In surveying these symptoms of pride,
I feel almost reassured, for truly I cannot detect them
in myself and I do not fall into such eccentricities.
But who indeed carries the fault to such excess, and
on the other hand, who will dare to think himself
wholly free from it ?

What shocks us in theory, and in others, may easily
pass unnoticed in ourselves.

In this meditation I am making an analysis, drawing
a picture, stigmatising a vice; I have conceived a
horror of it, and fear it in itself; this is a great point.

Now my ideas are formed, my conscience is warned.
I possess the means of discernment, and the will to
fight.

O my God, during these meditations, I beseech
Thee to show me myself. It is sad that I have lived so
long in darkness, but now, out of the darkness objects
begin little by little to emerge, and I shall watch myself
carefully. Thy light, O Holy Spirit, will be the torch
that my instant prayer will apply to the dark places of
my life ; Thou wilt reveal me to myself, a being whom
I did not know. I do not feel proud ; but not to be so

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 35
I must be entirely humble. That sounds like a naivete ;
it is a piercing ray of light. Who, in fact, is perfectly
humble ? Am I humble to such a degree ?

RESOLUTION. — An innate propensity urging me to
overrate myself, it is a matter of simple wisdom to
incline rather to believe myself lower than I think.

THIRD MEDITATION
EXERCISE III

ON THE EXCESSIVE DESIRE OF ESTEEM

First point : The nature and power of this tendency.
Second point : Disorders to which it may lead.
Third point : The folly it may give rise to.

Evening Preparation. — To-morrow I am to face this
disposition, which may so easily dominate me. I am
to find out its dangers and discover the miserable side
of it. If I would not be a victim to this excessive desire
of esteem, here are some of the signs by which I may
detect it : uneasiness, or at least preoccupation, caused
by the fear of blame. According to circumstances,
either foolish joy or uncontrolled sorrow; according
to temperament, discouragement, irritation, envy,
jealousy, detraction, etc. What smallness it engenders,
what meannesses it sanctions, what falseness it
inspires ! I ought to fear it because it demoralises ; I
ought: to watch it because it is tenacious, and because
great virtue alone can escape it.

36 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — As in the preceding meditation, to ask
the grace of illumination and great sincerity of con
viction.

1. The nature and power of this tendency. — The
desire for the esteem of others must not be confounded
with the sentiment of self-esteem.

We meet with it, in fact, in persons who recognise
their own worthlessness, and some even deliberately
allow others to attribute qualities to them that they do
not possess. On the other hand, some men, satisfied
with themselves, disdain the opinion of others.

The desire of praise is, then, a special form of pride.
" The sweetness of fame is so great," said Pascal, " that
we love whatever bestows it, even death itself. We
would joyfully lose our lives if only we might be
spoken of. We are so presumptuous that we wish for
a world-wide reputation, and so vain that the esteem
of the five or six people who surround us pleases and
gratifies us."

This weakness appears in the small child, and is,
according to Plato, "the last garment that we lay
aside."

2. Disorders to which it may lead. — A reasonable
and peaceful liking for the esteem of men is not a vice :
it is sometimes a personal help, and a stimulus to useful
actions; this is why we may bestow praise as an
encouragement.

In reality, everything good deserves to be esteemed ;
disorder consists in loving esteem more than goodness,
in desiring it beyond what we deserve, and in seeking
it with eagerness.

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 37

What does that man pursue who is dominated by
the love of praise ? Is it well-doing ? No, but the
notoriety it brings him. Thus he aims not at doing
his duty, but at its accidental reward.

The vain man may be useful and generous, but only
in order to appear so. Let him be misunderstood, and
he loses all interest, for approbation was his support.
Then depression and irritation follow, as the different
crises of the same disease. Depression plunges him
into the inaction of discouragement, irritation pro
vokes him to break all obstacles, and is not very
scrupulous in its counsels as to the choice of means.

On the other hand, success will produce a disorder
quite as serious. The vain man, knowing himself
esteemed, straightens and expands himself. He
breathes more deeply in order the better to draw in
the eulogies bestowed on him. Illusion envelops him
as in a cloud, and the exact appreciation of things
escapes him. He may easily become rash, and will
" collapse " in his folly.

Is he wicked ? No, but yet he appears hard. Is he
unjust ? No, yet he tramples on the rights of others :
he has not noticed them. Is he false ? No, and yet he
changes his opinions, his attitude, his manner of
speaking, according to the company he is in ; he is by
turns arrogant or flattering, as it swits him; he will
even go so far as to simulate humility. He has only one
aim in view : to occupy a higher place in the esteem of
others. And all this is done in serene unconsciousness.

3. The jolly of this tendency. — If in practice we
are preserved from such excess by our contact with
reality, let us cast a look into the depths of our interior,
and see what is passing there.

38 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Endless idle dreams, in which in imagination we do
brilliant things with astonishing success; situations
which reveal in us qualities superior to any we have
exhibited under normal conditions. Already we hear
murmurs of applause; we see faces lighted up with
enthusiasm; we enjoy our own and others' surprise.
These are dreams, and we know them for such, but
they foster our weakness.

It is a pleasure, and in default of the reality we
enjoy it, though in certain lucid waking moments
we may cry : What a fool I am !

This vain love of praise is indeed folly, though often
a sweet folly that we smile at indulgently when it
shows itself; but at times it is a terrible folly, whose
mistakes may destroy us !

Ah ! what need we have of a clear knowledge of
ourselves ! What need of humility !

Let us examine the motives that have prompted us
in the important decisions of our lives; those which
animate us to-day in our ordinary actions.

Above all, let us consider what is the true source of
our joys and our griefs. Only too often we shall find
that it is praise or blame.

Let us scrutinise our conduct. Do we not favour
those who flatter us ? And if we imagine that a certain
person does not care for us, do we not readily show
ourselves hostile and unjust towards him ? We must
conceive a great desire for humility, being assured
that we are lacking in the virtue, and therefore in moral
equilibrium.

RESOLUTION. — To say to myself again and again
to-day : " Suppose those about me knew how greedy
I am for esteem !"

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 39

CONCLUSIONS AND SUMMARY

The analysis of the propensities which tend to self-
aggrandisement may be appropriately followed by a
consideration of the part humility must play in their
regard ; we shall prove that without humility, Christian
virtue can neither be established, nor can it endure,
and that the punishment of pride is brought about by
pride itself.

Self-esteem prompts us to depend upon our own
ideas, our own resources, and our own wills. Now,
what happens when this self -confidence is excessive?
We are certain to make mistakes and to be deceived.
But this is the least inconvenience. What is more
serious is that the sense of our need of God is
destroyed ; and this is worse than a mere fault, it is a
grave danger, for such an attitude implies the negation
of grace.

Under the influence of this disposition the proud
man does not dream of consulting God, nor of implor
ing His help, however great the need. Blinded by his
own intelligence, he sees neither the fact nor, above all,
the hatefulness of this strange neglect.

This error, born of defective sentiment, is responsible
for many disasters.

This analysis may be summed up thus : God, by
His grace, is the principle of virtue. The proud think
and act as though they themselves were this principle.
The excessive desire of esteem is equally opposed
to virtue, though in a different way ; it, too, however,
attacks the rights of God.

God is not merely the principle of our virtuous
actions. He should also be the end, and our own

40 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

interests, even when legitimate, should be a secondary
motive.

But what place has such a point of view in a soul
where a craving for the esteem of others reigns
supreme ?

If we set our heart on succeeding, it is because we
desire the honour that attends Success; and if we
suffer so much when we fail, it is because it lowers us.

What efforts, what sacrifices, have been made in
order to obtain a more brilliant position, an honour
able distinction, or even simple praise ; and in all the
consequent tumult of personal hopes and fears — not
one thought of God ! Actions inspired by such
motives, good and beneficent though they may be in
themselves, have in them nothing supernatural, nor
even virtuous in the true sense of the word. What shall
we say of a life actuated almost entirely by such
motives ?

This second analysis may also be summed up in a
few words : God should be the final end of all our
actions; the proud man forgets and sets Him aside,
preoccupied solely with himself. He also injures God
in another way, by preferring to His esteem the vain
esteem of creatures.

To punish the proud man God has only to leave
him to himself; the consequences clearly illustrate
some of the ideas expressed in our earlier pages.

Fallen man, left to himself, tends towards evil; and
if he is not supported by the help of God, sooner or
later he falls into sin, speedily sinking lower and lower,
in accordance with the law, perfectly applicable in the
moral world, by which falling objects decline ever
faster and faster. We will develop this truth later.

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 41

Pride such as this, calling down a like chastisement,
is rare among Christians who keep in touch with God,
and it is still more rare among pious people. We
should fear, however, a lesser degree of pride, that still
may call down just punishment : persistent dry ness
in devotion, sadness, and faults, into which, alas ! God
may allow us to fall.

This kind of punishment is the special visitation
of immoderate self-esteem; the excessive desire of
esteem more often finds its chastisement in the
joy that is perpetually sought but never found. It
begins with preoccupation and ends in disappoint
ment.

This craving always exceeds the possibilities of
attainment, and its avidity is ever on the increase.

God, on His side, finding Himself forgotten, turns
away, and by the withdrawal of His grace inflicts the
greatest punishment of all. Not for His own satisfac
tion does He sow with bitterness our human joys,
making us miserable in our fruitless quests ; but in the
fond hope that one day hunger will drive the prodigal
back to his father's house.

The nature of humility now stands revealed with
perfect clearness : it is truth and order, for order and
justice are equivalent terms.

The truth is that God and not ourselves is the
principle of all good ; and order means that God must
be the end of all our actions.

If God is the principle of all good, my duty consists
in living in entire dependence upon Him; if He is the
bounden end of all my actions, my duty is to conse
crate them all to His greater glory.

As principle, God is law and demands obedience;

42 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

as end, He is to be our sovereign motive and He

demands purity of intention.

What can He do with a being that defies the law
and ignores his end ?

We will continue to develop these ideas more fully,
that we may understand them better.

FOURTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE IV

HUMILITY THE FOUNDATION OF ALL VIRTUE

First point : The foundation of the virtues.
Second point : Purity of intention.
Third point : Confidence in God.

Evening Preparation.— lo-moriQVf I shall consider
this truth more closely, with the idea rather of self-
instruction than of self-examination. To instruct our
selves is the first step towards the good that we are
in pursuit of. I must face this truth fairly: that
humility is the foundation of every other virtue. If
this be true, in what sense are we to understand it ?
What is its range ? and by what practical dispositions
are we to exhibit it ?

Up to now I have accepted the statement without
question, but also without inquiry into its reasonable
ness.

My vague ideas on the subject and my consequent
want of conviction may be in part responsible for my
imperfect humility.

O my God, give me Thy light and Thy holy fear.
But above all grant me the will to make myself humble.

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 43

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — Ask for grace to realise the close connec
tion between humility and the other Christian virtues.

I. The foundation of virtue, — Virtue is the sum of
good dispositions and acquired powers which, main
taining us in the practice* of well-doing, constitutes our
moral greatness. This is why it has been compared
to an edifice.

Every edifice that is to endure must rest on solid
foundations. Those of virtue, as we have seen above,
are no other than God as the principle and end of our
spiritual life. Now the virtue that recognises Him as
such and allows Him to play this part in our lives is
humility ; it is humility that acknowledges Him as the
first principle of our virtuous actions and as the final
end of our intentions.

Self-esteem, on the contrary, when undisciplined,
prompts the proud man to rely too much on himself,
and to attribute to himself the good that he does. On
the other hand, an immoderate desire for esteem will
lead him, in everything, to consider what will bring
him the most respect and praise. In a final analysis,
the foundation of moral actions is in the motive that
inspires them ; their motive is their soul. Now, we may
reflect that, though our human actions, generally
speaking, may have very varied motives, it is not so
with our virtuous actions. These are prompted either
by the desire to please God, or by the desire to attract
to ourselves the esteem of men.

The love of pleasure, for instance, never produces
even an appearance of virtue.

44 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

The proud man places all his confidence in himself,
and even in virtue seeks his own excellence.

The conflict, O my God, is, then, between Thee and
my pride. Is my virtue to rest upon Thee Who art
my strength, or upon myself who am naught but weak
ness ? Shall my life tend to Thy glory, or to the satis
faction of my own vainglory ? Art Thou to be my
God, or is self to be my idol ?

A great truth is brought out in these words : pride
is the rival of God, pride is the Me substituting itself
for Him. This state of things presents itself in two
aspects, and may be summed up in these two phrases :
I rely on myself, I act for myself.

I rely on myself, on my own savoir-faire, on my
resolution, and on my own strength. Foolish words,
for without God I can do nothing.

I act for myself : wrong and unjust words, for God
should be the final end of everything He has created.

The opposite of these hateful pretensions may also
be summed up in two short sentences : I rely on God,
I act for God. This is confidence in God, and purity
of intention.

2. Confidence in God. — I rely on God. It is the
property of humility to show us our dependence in
everything. Without God we can do nothing; and in
every supernatural action His grace is an absolute
necessity to us.

We shall meditate later on these truths; let us be
content for the moment to admit them and to draw
from them this inevitable conclusion : that to rely on
self is simply foolish. Now this folly is the outcome
of pride.

Grace being indispensable to us, God, in His

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 45

wisdom, requires that when we present ourselves to
receive it, we should do so with dispositions suitable
to our state, and He has, therefore, made humility the
condition of His gifts.

Humility, regarded from this point of view, is self-
distrust. Now this holy distrust instinctively turns
with confidence to God, saying, " I know myself, and
that I can do nothing ; but I also know God, and that
with Him I can do all things. The more I feel my
littleness, my weakness, and my inclination to evil, the
more I find growing within me the need of confidence
in God."

3. Purity of intention. — " I act for God " — this is the
formula, and in this short sentence are expressed order,
wisdom, and goodness, for to act for God is to
gravitate towards the Infinite Being by Whom every
thing exists ; to play my part in the universal concert
that glorifies Him; to take my rightful place in the
beneficent plan that He has formed. Has not God
rights, since He is the Supreme Being and eminently
worthy of love ? and should I not be indeed foolish if I
did not make Him the end of all my actions ?

Now pride draws me away from Him, even when it
is only pride in practice.

Without making an absolute idol of self, we may yet
in will and deed be concerned chiefly with self. With
out formally excluding God we may ignore Him in
our intentions, and in this way put ourselves outside
His eternal scheme, lose our true orientation, and
become as it were the vagrants of creation.

It is humility that ensures purity of intention. It
destroys our self-obsession, and keeps us in our place.
The truly humble soul willingly acknowledges the

46 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

rights of God and respects them. She makes them her
rule of life, and if she encroaches upon them she is
sorry, and tries to make amends. This purity of inten
tion is a necessity to her, and the light of it shines in
all her actions.

Happy is the soul that is entirely humble, and who
has abandoned herself to the designs of the Almighty
Father. She wills all that He wills, and loves all that
He loves. She endures exterior trials and interior
desolations with the same equability, for no other
frame of mind would be possible to her.

How far removed is the proud soul from such a
disposition, and how much she is to be pitied ! for it is
written : " Every plant that my Father has not planted
shall be rooted up."

Purity of intention and confidence in God are both
of them the daughters of humility. Purity of intention
directs, confidence animates, and together they pave
the way that leads to perfection. God, Who in this
world is the object of their pursuit, will in Heaven be
their everlasting possession.

RESOLUTION.— Not to allow the esteem of men to
become a necessity to me, but to elevate myself to a
desire for God's; this should be sufficient for me, and
by it I must be governed.

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 4;

FIFTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE V

THE GROWTH OF VIRTUE HINDERED BY
UNCONSCIOUS PRIDE

First point : The fact and its causes.
Second point : Indicative signs.

Evening Preparation. — In to-morrow's meditation
I shall give myself up to a retrospective examination;
I shall go over again the period of my training ; I shall
examine the motives that have inclined me to well
doing; I shall seek to discover what have been the
exterior influences that have kept me in the right path ;
I will put on one side all that was pure, disinterested,
and actuated by the love of God, and on the other all
that was more or less consciously tainted with self-
complacence and the desire of esteem.

O my God, enable me to get far enough away from
myself that I may see clearly. Recall to my memory
all these little details which go to make up the past.
I beseech Thee, if my spiritual life has been infected
with excess of pride, make me to know, to feel, and to
abhor it.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To pray that God will throw upon my
past life His searching light, to enable me to discover
whether my humility is solid and sincere.

i. The fact considered in this meditation and its
causes. — There are virtues which are formed under the
more or less actual influence of unconscious pride.
There is even a great deal of such virtue. Mine may

48 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

be of the same kind. Is it possible that pride may have
had a share in establishing me in pious habits, and I
have been unaware of it ? We often speak of hidden
pride, pride in disguise— but I did not suppose that I
could ever fall a victim to it. Yet my slackness anH
my faults must be in great measure due to the fact that
my virtues are built upon the unstable foundations of
pride.

O my soul, be attentive and pray !

Have we ever noted the consequences of these two
psychological facts : the essential imitativeness of man,
and his sensitiveness and adaptability to environ
ment ? Let us apply the test to the period of our own
development.

By what persons were we surrounded ? what were
the prevailing ideas among them ? etc. It is enough to
say that the influences of our lives were good and
tended to piety. Nothing was more highly honoured
than virtue; heroical goodness was admired; those
who showed any approach to sanctity were held in
veneration; books and conversation all concurred to
strengthen good impressions. We valued such things,
and envied those who were better than ourselves.

Were such sentiments absolutely pure and un
alloyed that in truth incited us to well-doing ? Or did
the desire to have a share in the general esteem play
some part in our enthusiasm for goodness ? Did our
contentment in the service of God borrow nothing from
our self -contentment, and from our consciousness of the
place we occupied in the minds of others ? Ah ! who
shall disclose these secrets that are known to God
alone ?

We may easily conceive the possibility that our

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 49

humility itself may have been at least partially
inspired by pride !

In such a milieu as that of which we have spoken,
humility is deemed the pre-eminent virtue. It is well-
nigh impossible not to make an exterior show of it, to
adopt its expressions, and even to feel something of
the sentiment. To believe ourselves humble, and
sufficiently humble, is a need. Doubtless this humility
may be sincere, for such influences foster its growth in
a wonderful way ; but it may also be a very superficial
humility. A naturally proud soul will be thrown off
the scent, and in her pursuit for humility may easily
mistake the shadow for the substance.

Once more, who shall fathom these mysteries that
are known only to God ?

2. Indications. — The Divine Master said : " The
tree is known by its fruit." Let us apply this test to
our lives.

As we grew up and our environment changed, what
became of our beautiful enthusiasms ? Was not our
zeal for perfection, and especially for humility, soon
extinguished ? — and that without our putting up any
great show of resistance, or feeling any sense of shock.

Yet those new surroundings still encouraged the
growth of virtue, though perhaps not in so pronounced
a fashion. Different ideas held sway, and faithful to
our pliant nature and for the satisfaction of our self-
love we adapted ourselves to them.

Our attitude when faced with contradictions, failure,
injustice, and scorn, is also another noteworthy sign.
If we are troubled, sad, and preoccupied, we betray
our imperfect virtue, resting more or less on a basis of
pride.

50 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

When there is real discouragement, anger, animosity,
jealousy, rebellion : then we may be sure that pride is
deep-rooted and dominant within us.

Our humility was then only on the surface, its
sentiments only those we had learnt ! If it had been
real and thorough it would have imparted to us calm
and resignation, perhaps even that lofty peace and joy
that the great souls of the Apostles experienced even
when they were under the scourge. I bant gaudentes.

I thank Thee, O my God, for this clear light that
penetrates the depths of my life. I confess that it
wounds me with its brightness ; I suffer, while I ques
tion whether I do not stand in need of being wholly
remade. I behold my virtue as the result merely of my
surroundings, and I ask myself what I should have
been had my environment, my position, my occupa
tions, and my associates, been entirely different ? At
the mere thought of such moral isolation I long to hide
myself on Thy breast, O Thou Who art my only
refuge ! O God, create in me a new and humble soul !
Multi humilitatis umbram pauci verit at em sequntur :
" Many pursue the shadow of humility, few the reality,"
said S. Jerome.

RESOLUTION.— To ask myself if I should behave in
the same manner, with the same affability, the same
zeal, if there were none but God to notice it and to be
pleased with me.

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 51

SIXTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE VI

HUMILITY THE GUARDIAN OF THE VIRTUES

First point : Humility the salt that preserves.

Second point : Humility the light that disperses illusion.

Evening Preparation. — If our virtue is built even in
part upon an unconscious pride, the edifice is founded
on the sand, there is constant danger of destruction.
If it is established on God, we may be reassured as to
the past, but we must not be without fear for the
future, for pride is able to destroy even the most solidly
built edifice.

" He who without humility gathers to himself
virtues," says S. Jerome, "is like the man who faces
the wind with a load of fine dust" — Qui sine
humilitate virtutes congregat, quasi in ventum
pulverem portat. " Oh ! what violent winds blow
around us, and in what danger are our fleeting resolu
tions!"

S. Anthony, frightened by a vision that showed him
the temptations of the world, cried : " Lord ! how shall
we be preserved from them ?" " By humility," was the
response.

Humility, the basis of the virtues, is also, and for
the same reason, their guardian; she makes God the
principle and the end of our actions. Pride unjustly
attributes them to self, and destroys the edifice. The
whole of tradition teaches us this truth, and we, in our
turn, repeat it; but though it may be an accepted

52 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

maxim, are we really convinced of its truth? We
have cause to fear if we discover that, though we may
not be positively proud, neither are we humble.

The humble soul is conscious at all times of the need
of God, of His indulgence as well as of His help.

Such a one feels that in view of his misery and
weakness, he walks like a wounded man to whom all
movement is painful.

By such humility virtue is well guarded. O my
God, may it become mine !

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — Ask for grace to throw myself into
humility as into a citadel that will protect me.

I. Humility the salt that preserves. — The greater
the virtue, the greater the danger of pride, for all well
doing is matter for vain self-complacence and the
applause of men.

Vain self-complacence commences the work of dis
integration. It insinuates itself so quietly, and its
promptings are such pleasant hearing; it is so accom
modating, and knows so well how to disguise itself.

Like a poison mixed with wholesome substances, it
mingles itself with our satisfaction in working for the
glory of God and the salvation of souls ; it is found in
sensible devotion, and follows us in the most sublime
elevations of the soul.

Unconsciously to ourselves, it grows and ravages
our souls, and its action is so slow that it does not
arouse our vigilance. Thus the poison infects even our
highest virtues.

Vain self-complacence begins the work of destruc
tion, and the love of praise completes it. This murmur

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 53

of approbation from without echoes so agreeably
within ! Of course, we assure ourselves that we shall
not be misled by it ; we regret that it should be offered
to us; we give to God all the glory — and yet our
pleasure in it is deep and real.

Under this double influence the evil grows ; it is not
one transient action that is vitiated by it, but a whole
series of actions; soon, perhaps, it may affect the
whole life.

Virtue is corrupted, and, though for some time it
will be upheld by sheer force of habit and the demands
of pride itself, it will not be able to sustain this fic
titious life for long.

Some strong temptation, or unexpected circum
stance, a mere nothing, and it will crumble into dust.

How may we prevent such a misfortune ? By being
humble. " She will be with virtue, or virtue will not
be," said S. Augustine of humility : Virtus non est nisi
conjunctam habeat humilitatem. Humility must be
sprinkled upon our virtues as salt is sprinkled upon a
substance that we wish to preserve ; it will prevent all
destructive fermentation, it will detach us from a too
personal point of view, and it will enable us to find
our satisfaction in God alone.

But in order to be effective this virtue must be real ;
it must operate with the ease, spontaneity, and willing
ness of a habit. Otherwise we shall often be taken by
surprise. Humility must become as natural to us as
pride was.

Let us, then, address our prayers to the Master and
to the Queen of the humble.

2. Humility the light that disperses illusion. — It is
a common saying, and profoundly true, that pride is

54 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

blind; and the masters of the spiritual life have so
well understood the nature of humility that they have
always looked upon this virtue as the most reliable
test in the discernment of spirits. Is the virtue of such
and such a person real or assumed ? Does this extra
ordinary contemplation come from God ? Is that
vision real or imaginary ? The answer will depend
chiefly upon the humility of the favoured individual.

This test should be applied equally to the most
ordinary virtue.

We must fear the delusions of pride that we see in
others, and fear also our own self-contentment, if we
do not also feel that we are very small — for very small
we are, and very weak and miserable.

God does not judge as men judge. Those who,
perhaps, look upon us as saints do not know our
ingratitude and the faults which still dog our footsteps.
To put and to keep us in our right place, our humility
needs to be real and sincere, penetrating our minds
and exhibiting to us our nothingness, our helplessness,
and our faults. In a word, our humility must be true.

It is indeed very easy to wander off the track, to go
astray, and to fall into tepidity ; we choose our duties
and plan our lives to suit ourselves and our own tastes ;
what we like seems good to us ; we expose ourselves to
dangers we are not called upon to face ; we excuse our
faults and continue to commit them; we do not feel
the need of prayer ; we live for self without regretting
it ; and thus tepidity gains upon us and demoralises us.

If humility had been really active, all these failings
would have been detected and arrested, for humility
gives an instinct for what is good and true.

If we only had a deep sense of self-mistrust, we

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 55

should clearly perceive the need for resolute self-con
quest, if we are not to offer resistance to grace.

3. Nothing warps the conscience so much as the
influence of indulged pride; nothing keeps it so clear
and decided as the sentiment of humility.

The humble soul, distrustful of self, will follow the
safe way, asking advice willingly, avoiding danger,
praying unceasingly, and availing herself of every aid.
She may attain to great virtue, yet she will scarcely be
aware of it. She may be confirmed in well-doing, yet
she will feel in herself how weak she is. Oh ! what a
perfect guardian of virtue is humility !

Without it, how many and what serious falls we may
experience ! The roots of the tree decay, the founda
tions of the edifice crumble away. The tempest of
passion arises, or the violent strain of difficult circum
stances; the tree is uprooted from the soil of the
Church, and the beautiful structure falls into ruin.
And the tree is not replanted, nor the ruins rebuilt;
while, close at hand, sinners who have been wallowing
in the mire find, in spite of their faults, and even
through their faults, a saving humility. Proesu-
mentes de se et de bona sua virtute gloriantes, humilias
— " He who glories in his strength and prides himself
on his virtue shall be humiliated by Thee, O Lord."

RESOLUTION. — To live constantly in fear of myself,
and to carry this fear about with me like a sensitive
wound.

56 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

SEVENTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE VII

THE PUNISHMENT OF PRIDE

First point : Personal ineffectiveness.

Second point : The abandonment and aversion of God.

Third point : Forfeiture and degradation.

Evening Preparation. — Pride tends to deprive
God of His glory, and of His rightful place. It puts
in His place, unintentionally, perhaps, but practically,
what is already sufficiently detestable. How is it that
God suffers it ? What would be the feelings of a
human master towards a servant who did what he
liked and insisted that he was within his rights ? How
would he treat him ? He would not only punish him,
but he would punish him in such a way as to bring
home to him the meanness and despicableness of his
pretensions.

All law aims at maintaining order; and humility
is the law of our present condition.

Its violation produces disorder within us, around
us, and in our intercourse with God ; and from thence
proceed error, danger, failure, perhaps the ruin of
virtue, and even final impenitence.

Punishment seldom falls swiftly on the culprit,
it comes slowly but surely. Years may pass during
which he may have no forebodings, and he may
become so confirmed in his mistaken path as to pursue
it almost unconsciously.

I will place before myself to-morrow this real cause
for fear. May it incite me to make strong resolutions.

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 57

It must be remembered that it is not enough that we
do not seem to be proud, we must feel humble — that is,
worthless and helpless in ourselves.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask God to convince me that the
question of humility and pride is a question of life or
death.

i. Personal ineffectiveness. — Pride possesses the
fatal property of rendering ineffective in us everything
that it touches. The most beautiful action, inspired
by pride, is worthless in the sight of God. It is like
an unfruitful flower, and everything good that is
tainted by the breath of pride withers in the same way.
Thus the most active life that is inspired by pride is
like the vessel of the Danaids that nothing could
replenish because it was full of holes.

Our Lord, speaking of the Pharisees who fasted
and prayed in order to attract attention, cried,
" Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward."

Why, indeed, should God reward what is not done
for Him? He will not, and besides, He cannot, for
every action that is not prompted by a supernatural
intention, at least virtually, is deprived of His co
operation. There is no life in it, and grace being
absent, no glory can shine upon it. Not being inspired
by the Holy Spirit, it cannot receive the blessing of
Heaven.*

We may imagine the chagrin of the proud man

* To be meritorious, an action must fulfil these three
conditions : i. It must be good in itself. 2. The doer must
be in a state of grace. 3. There must be a supernatural
intention.

58 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

when, after death, he finds himself with his hands
empty, and hears the sentence: "I know you not."
He is amazed. Has he not prophesied? Has he
not suffered a thousand hardships ? Has he not given
himself up to pious exercises, even to the very hour of
his death ?

Yes, he has done all this, and in certain works he
has been very successful. But what has been the
principal motive of all his activity? Applause,
respect. He has, alas ! obtained them, and that is all.
His reward is worthy of his vanity : Receperunt
mercedem vani vanum — "Their virtue was vain, and
vain was their reward " (S. Augustine).

Happy is he if heaven is still open to him. He owes
it to the only Mercy, and that Mercy has perhaps been
touched by some little good deed, or pious practice,
that he has made small account of; perhaps by some
prayer of another and very humble soul.

But what treasures of grace has he lost for ever !

2. The abandonment and aversion of God, — In
order to chastise the proud man, God has no need to
arm Himself with a sword; it is sufficient to leave him
to himself. Nothing could be more just, since he is
presumptuous ; nothing could be more fatal, for he is
weak.

Blinded by his illusions, swayed by his impulses, he
rushes into the abyss. His sense of danger is dormant,
his eyes are blinded, and he does not feel the need of
asking for light and help.

Now, between the all-powerful God and man who
is essentially weak, there is a tacit contract. " Be
humble and pray ; keep in thy place," says God, " and
I will be in Mine, and will sustain thee."

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 59

The bond of this covenant broken, we may be left
to ourselves ; and this is not a mere possibility.

But if the abandonment of God is terrible, how
much more so is His aversion ! It is almost hatred ;
Tres species odivi . . .pauper em superbum — "Three
things provoke my hatred . . . the poor man who is
proud." Abominatio Domini omnis arrogans — "The
Lord holds the arrogant man in abomination."

This hatred pursues the proud man, and nothing
can shield him from its avenging fury. Superbia cordis
tui exaltavit te: et si exaltatus fueris ut aquila, et si
inter sidera posueris nidum tuum, inde detraham te,
dicit Dominus. " The pride of thy heart hath lifted
thee up; but though thou be exalted as an eagle,
and though thou set thy nest among the stars : thence
will I bring thee down, saith the Lord."

Let us meditate upon these terrible words, the un
expected revelation of the hatred felt towards this vice
by a Heart distinguished for its mercy !

High position, even in the Church ; eminent services
rendered, even to religion; admirable virtues, no
doubt admired too much ; all these things may become
matter for pride without being a defence of it in the
eyes of God. " Thence will I bring thee down " —
inde detraham te; and He has already thus treated
great potentates — Deposuit potentes de sede.

3. Forfeiture and degradation. — Let us see how the
aversion of God is displayed, and to what His
abandonment leads.

S. Paul, speaking of the philosophers sunk in their
pride, says : Tradidi et illos in desideria cordis eorum
in immunditiam — "Wherefore God gave them up to
the desires of their hearts, unto uncleanness, to dis-

60 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

honour their own bodies among themselves." See
them fallen, degraded, and reckoned among the
brutes — Animates homo.

Warned by this spectacle, let us bear in mind that
pride is the cause of such degradation, and has the
power to produce it. Initium omnis peccati superbia.
It is the source of all the vices, as we know by revela
tion as well as by experience, but we scarcely care to
translate the words in which its terrible effects are
described in the Scriptures : Sicut eructant prcecordia
fcetantiam . . . sic et cor superb orum.

After this, can we be surprised to hear that pride is
one of the most manifest signs of reprobation ?

The proud man, once plunged into evil-doing, finds
in it his tomb. If he is to be saved, he must recognise
his guilt ; he must ask for grace, he must humble him
self ; and of all this he is incapable.

Reflection. — Among the punishments we have just
considered, there is not one that we may not be liable
to bring upon ourselves sooner or later. Truly we
have to fear the insidious growth of pride, and the
anger of God when this vice deprives Him of the glory
that is His due. We should tremble in considering
the different natures of good and evil. There must be
nothing lacking to our goodness — any hiatus gives an
opening to evil. An action that may be ever so good,
if it is prompted by self-love is vitiated even at its
birth. Again, though rightly begun, it may be
suddenly changed and spoilt by the creeping in of a
motive of pride.

Lastly, perfectly accomplished, it may leave in us a
destructive germ of self-complacence.

From this dreary picture let us turn our eyes to a

THE NEED OF BEING HUMBLE 61

more consoling one, that which depicts the reign of
humility.

Instead of rendering our greatest actions futile, it
gives merit even to the smallest.

Instead of arousing the aversion of God, it calls
forth His tenderness.

Instead of debasing us, it elevates. De stercore
erigens pauper em. Et exalt avit humiles.

Lastly, instead of the presages of damnation, there
are assurances of salvation. Humiles salvabit
Dominus. And it cannot be otherwise. The humble
man prays, and God listens. Respicit in orationem
humilium. He can do all in Him Who strengthens
him ; he lives, yet not he, but God lives in him. When
ever he can, he retires into shadow and silence, and in
the shadow God reveals Himself, and in the silence
He speaks to him. He is forgetful of the good that he
does, he is gentle to everyone, and filial towards God.
Who will not feel the need of the desire to become
humble ?

RESOLUTION. — I will make myself humble, cost
what it will.

SECOND WEEK

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE

PREPARATION FOR THE SECOND WEEK

THE need of humility is sufficiently demonstrated to
us when we see how persistently pride tempts us even
when it is held in check. It is a life-long enemy.

The foundations of virtue are undermined by this
vice, and become unstable; the principles of the
spiritual life are threatened; our good deeds are
deprived of their merit, and punishment and destruc
tion follow.

We must, then, make ourselves humble. This need,
well established though it is, does not, however, give
us the clue to the raison d'etre of humility, though it
assures us that such a raison d'etre exists.

All disorder, indeed, points to some evil, since God
has put goodness, like health, in equilibrium.

Then humility should result from the very nature
of things, and to be humble is merely to be true. It is
this that will be shown in the following meditations.

I. The first four meditations set forth the condition
of man considered as a created being, as a fallen being,
and as a being transformed by grace.

The result of these considerations should be a
humility that all alike need, the most perfect as well as
the most faulty — humility before God.

It would seem that such a humility should be easy,
since it is only in accordance with right feeling; it is,
however, a very puissant humility, for it has made
saints. Why has it not made many saints ? Is human

65 5

66 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

weakness the reason ? In great part, for we see the
best and pursue the worst. But it is also due to a want
of conviction.

Traditional truths do not arrest the attention, they
are too familiar; and even when seriously examined,
they do not strike us with any force, for abstract truth
makes little impression on the generality of people.

The preceding meditations, on the contrary, should
have impressed us, for they envisage our tendencies as
moral facts — facts well nigh as tangible as material
facts — and facts have the power to strike and con
vince us.

Though this cannot be said of the new truths which
we are about to consider, we should take care not to
fall into the mistake of regarding as uncertain what is
less tangible, and looking upon revelations that sur
prise us as doubtful.

We are apt to resemble those ignorant people who
shrug their shoulders when a scientific man shows
them all that is contained, for instance, in a drop of
water. They do not know that beneath the outward
shows of things an unknown world lies hidden.

2. To these four abstract, and in some sort im
personal, meditations succeeds a consideration of our
faults. This entirely concerns ourselves and no one
else. It is no longer metaphysical truth but our own
work that is spread out before our eyes, the work of
our whole life, including all our actions, all our
thoughts, and all our guilty omissions; a vast field,
some portions of which, belonging to the distant past,
are shrouded in obscurity and shadowed by illusions,
but which, under the light of a serious examination,
will become clearly distinguishable.

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 6;

This meditation must become the basis of our
humility, our personal humility, a humility which
abases us not only before God, but before men; a
humility which extinguishes an exaggerated sense of
self-esteem, and forbids us to seek an esteem from
others which we know we do not deserve.

3. To esteem an object is to recognise its worth, and
its worth can only be measured by some comparison.
In this case it is the comparison with others. With
whom shall I compare myself? With the low and
miserable ? No, for they do not merit esteem. Then
I must compare myself with the great and good, and I
see that God and the Saints are the only true measure
of the greatness and goodness that deserve esteem.
This meditation is designed to complete the effect of
abstract reasoning by force of a sensible impression.

4. Because we find in certain motives for humility a
reason to abase ourselves only before God, are we to
conclude that such motives can have no influence on
our intercourse with men, because they do not prompt
us to a practical humility ?

Not at all. Humility, though it has indeed two
objects, God and our neighbour, is in essence one and
the same, an inclination to self-abasement.

These meditations, developing in the first place our
humility towards God, will enable us to overcome our
disposition to overrate ourselves, and will lead us to a
wise measure of humility towards our neighbour.

As all intellectual culture increases our power to
assimilate knowledge, and all true affection disposes
us the better to love God, so it is with the acquisition
of humility, whatever may be its object.

Endeavour to absorb these truths, which, however,

68 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

will cause you to lower your head and will make you
feel that you dare not again rashly suppose yourself
superior to anyone.

FIRST MEDITATION
EXERCISE VIII

THE NOTHINGNESS OF THE CREATURE

First point : The nothingness of being : I am nothing.
Second point : The nothingness of action : I can do nothing.

Evening Preparation. — If we derived our being
from some matter that exists outside God, or if, being
created by Him, we could appropriate as our own even
the smallest fraction of our substance, we should have
a value — and a value, though minute, that would be
appreciable.

But this is not the case; for though we come from
God, we do not pass out of His fruitful bosom except
by His creative act and almighty will. We are not
beings, properly speaking, but something as unsub
stantial and as fugitive as notes of music coming forth
from an instrument under the fingers of a musician.
God is neither enriched by the fact that He becomes
a Creator, nor diminished by the fact that we exist.

This is a definite truth, demonstrated by reason,
and admitted by the most rigorous philosophy.

And yet, in spite of all this, I am, I have, a kind of
being ; this being has an extension and a form ; it acts,
it displaces matter, and it transforms it; it wills or it
does not will ; it is free ; it is conscious, by its intelli
gence, of the universe ; and by its genius it can produce

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 69

marvels. Is, then, all this nothing ? A being and its
actions must be something.

Let us clearly understand at once that this some
thing, in the sight of God, is so vain and so ephemeral
that the Scriptures call it " a quasi nothing " : tanquam
nihilum ante te — in short, a being that does not count !

Thus are explained the words of S. Paul : Quis te
discernit? Quid habes quod non accepisti? "What
hast thou more than others ? What hast thou that
thou hast not received ?"

This profound point of view is disconcerting and
startling enough to confuse us, but it is an inevitable
conclusion that imposes itself upon the whole soul and
determines the whole will; for humility is not only a
conviction, it is an active virtue. It is not enough to
philosophise on all these questions; the chief thing is
to practise them.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace to conceive such a
lively sense of my own nothingness that it may pene
trate and direct me.

I. The nothingness of being: I am nothing. — Our
Lord said to S. Catherine of Siena : " Dost thou know,
My daughter, Who I am and who thou art ? Thou art
happy if thou knowest it ; I am He Who is ; thou art
she who art not."

God is Being in the fullest meaning of the word, it
is the name He gives to Himself : Ego sum, qui sum.
" I am nothingness in all its emptiness, and this is my
name " : Substantia mea tanquam nihilum — " My
substance is a kind of nothing."

Before my creation I did not exist, even in the most

;o THE PATH OF HUMILITY

elemental sense. A thousand years ago, a hundred
years ago, I was a possibility — that a mere nothing
might have prevented from coming into existence.

One day I appeared on the earth. Centuries had
preceded me; centuries, doubtless, will succeed me.
For the present I fill a few short fleeting hours. Then
silence will close about me, as deep water engulfs the
stone that for a moment has rippled its surface.

This being of mine is as fragile and inconsistent as
a vapour which disappears as soon as it arises : Vapor
cst modicum parens. It is only vivified dust :
Memento, homo, quid ptdvis es.

In the light of pure truth, the visible substance of
my body and the invisible substance of my soul are
alike nothingness, sustained in being only by creative
power. Take away for a moment this unseen but
necessary action, and my being would faint and vanish
away like smoke in the air, like the cloud in the sky,
without leaving any trace : Ad nihilum redactus sum
et nescivi.

" O unknown nothing ! O unknown nothing ! "
cried Blessed Angela of Foligno — cry of profound
truth, the summary of our poor greatness, but also the
origin of sentiments the most powerful, the most
elevated, and the most worthy of God.

If I am nothingness, O Lord, Thou art Being ! If
I am naught, Thou art All.

This double vision, by its contrasts, forms the
rhythm of the songs of heaven. In this celestial light
the condition of the blessed appears as similar to my
own: but their humility is my shame as well as my
lesson. Their glory makes their nothingness ever
more and more resplendent in their eyes, while my

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 71

many miseries succeed in obscuring mine from
me. . . .

II. The nothingness of action : I can do nothing. —
Our acts are of the same nature as our being. Our
being subsists, and we do not see the creative power
that sustains it. We act, and we see no more clearly
the power that makes action possible. It seems to us
that our actions are our very own.

I move my hand or my head, I contrive a thing, I
solve a problem, I think, I choose, I love, and all that
is positive in these actions is produced far more by the
action of God than by mine. It cannot be otherwise.
The nature of things demands it; and God, Who can
do all things, is unable to give me the power to accom
plish a single positive action without Himself; other
wise He would make me a creator. This is a mystery
as overwhelming as it is true, a deduction that invades
even the sanctuary of my free will.

Even in the resolution I have made to become
humble and which seems so exclusively mine, because
I might have chosen not to make it, God has acted a
thousand times more than myself; and my participa
tion is only to be found in my correspondence with the
influence that solicited me.

And if I search into the origin of my correspondence,
why I have given it and the strength which has
enabled me to give it, once more I find God.

At length, in order to explain how with all this I
still remain free, I am forced to say to myself : I feel
that I am free, and I know that God is powerful
enough to respect my essential liberty while maintain
ing it to the utmost degree.

If I do evil, the action of God, obeying the general

;2 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

laws of supreme wisdom, lends its concurrence to all
that is positive in what I do, and accompanies me still
even to the moment when, divorcing myself from order,
I escape from its influence.

Evil is a falling away for which I am responsible;
I divert the action of God and hinder its fruition; I
force it into strange channels, and finally it is lost.

O Lord, I do not understand myself ! Then how
vain and absurd is my self-complacence ! How
foolish my confidence in my own will even when it is
strongest ! How unjust I am when I attribute to
myself any good that I may do ! How dare I believe
in myself, or prefer myself to another ?

The simple veil of the created masks all this
nothingness, but the veil is light and a thousand
accidents displace it ; yet it is sufficient to deceive me.
It is, besides, very transparent; but I am careless, and
do not discern what it hides. I continue to attribute
an absolute reality to human action, and thus bolster
up my pride.

Lord, Thou Who seest all things, what dost Thou
think of this blind one ? Have pity upon him, open
his eyes, and make Thine Infinity shine upon his
littleness, for he is ashamed of his past pride.

In the midst of success as well as in reverses this
sight will give serenity; is it not, then, worth all our
trouble ? It is the highest wisdom that sets all things
in their proper light and true proportion. The
shadow of our nothingness throws into relief the great
ness of the Being Who is All.

RESOLUTION. — To contemplate frequently the
Infinite that envelops me, to lose myself in It, and to

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 73

leave there all my pride. To resolve to spend a few
moments, morning and evening, on my knees, ponder
ing these beautiful words : " My God and my all."

SECOND MEDITATION
EXERCISE IX

THE NECESSITY OF ACTUAL GRACE

First point : Its necessity in general.

Second point : The necessity of disposing grace.

Third point : The necessity of concomitant grace.

Evening Preparation. — The preceding meditation
casts a light upon the meditation of to-morrow.

If, in the order of nature, I am nothing, what am I,
then, in the order of grace ? Grace is not a right, and
when it is given it does not become a part of my
substance; it remains a divine vesture which at any
moment may be stripped from me.

Again, if the natural life needs for its least action
the co-operation of God, how much greater is our
dependence upon Him for the supernatural life whose
actions partake of the divine !

Many Catholics, without suspecting it, hold almost
heretical views on the subject of the operating of actual
grace. Their error arises from ignorance, and their
good faith excuses them, but it is their duty to inform
themselves. Grace is not, as they believe, a comple
ment of strength ; it is the first principle of all super
natural action, even of those actions which long use or
a personal predilection make extremely easy to us;
this is a dogma of faith.

74 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Seeing our nothingness and our position from this
new point of view, we shall not fail to realise that here
at least our dependence adds to our greatness; our
supernatural life is essentially a dependent life,
because it is a participation in the divine life, and
God alone is the author and sustainer of it. This
condition is ours not only in the present, but will be
ours throughout eternity, for God will still be the
principle of all our actions. O happy dependence !
God Himself will adore, love, and sing through us in
an indestructible union approaching unity !

MEDITATION

PRELUDE.— To ask the grace of a still deeper,
though less depressing, sense of my own nothingness.

I. The necessity of actual grace in general. — In the
supernatural order man is absolutely helpless. Actual
grace is as indispensable to him for the least as well as
for the greatest actions. " No man can say ' Jesus '
except by the Holy Spirit."

We have often heard this truth expressed, and we
have accepted it; the Church has made it an article
of faith, and we firmly believe it, but do we realise all
it means ?

To help us to do so, let us take some prominent
example, and observe the supernatural life led by a
perfect Catholic, a religious or a priest.

He has kept his baptismal innocence, he has served
God with unswerving fidelity; he is full of merit, of
virtues, and of fervour. His merits have procured for
him a marvellous increase of sanctifying grace. His
nature is perfectly controlled. His fervour brings his

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 75

love into the fullest activity. Should occasion offer,
he is capable of showing great heroism.

Yet even such a man would be unable to pronounce
the name of Jesus with faith unless immediate grace
came to his aid.

" The most perfectly formed eye," said S. Augustine,
" can see nothing without the aid of light."

The most holy man can do no good thing without
the divine help of the eternal light of grace.

II. Necessity of predisposing grace. — Let us draw a
comparison from the physical order that will help us.

We will suppose a harp absolutely in tune ; we may
say that it contains an infinite number of latent
melodies, yet to produce them there is constant need
of the hand of the harpist.

It is inert and silent, but draw the hand across the
strings and they vibrate. Look for the origin of a
supernatural action, and you will find predisposing
grace. It is this grace that has prompted the thought,
the desire, this reawakening of activity, and it is this
which has aroused the will.

And in this will, by which the action has been
decided upon, let us seek again; we shall find it
mysteriously informed with actual grace, without
robbing human liberty of its prerogatives.

I will, and it is more God than I Who wills through
me.

Harp of so great a Master, docile instrument of His
beauteous inspirations, left to thyself thou art not more
capable than any other harp of giving forth even the
most elementary harmony !

Thou art inert ; thou wilt remain mute, though thou
art the most perfect soul of a saint.

;6 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

3. The harp-string struck by the artist vibrates.
The soul of the just man, set in motion by grace, com
mences a supernatural action. Neither the sound nor
the action can surpass in strength the impulse that has
been received. According to the motion will be the
effect. The soul, associating itself with the action,
neither adds nor subtracts anything, any more than
the harp does.

Where is our part ? We co-operate, we lend our
selves, we make the impulse received our own : a mere
nothing of which God makes something.

III. The need for concomitant grace. — Let us con
sider one aspect of our incapacity in which it appears
more complete than that of the harp. Set in motion,
the instrument continues to vibrate for some time.
The soul, on the other hand, at once ceases to operate
unless the action of grace continues as concomitant
grace.

I have commenced a loving deed, for instance; my
lips are already forming expressions of affection ; but
if the action of grace ceases, I may continue the words,
but they will be cold and empty.

Then truly I can attribute to myself nothing of my
own ! Nothing, not even a wish or a simple desire.
No, it is contrary to faith. What ! not even the power
of meriting this desire, and of obtaining it by the
natural efforts of my mind and of my will ? No, this
claim would be contrary to faith.

But at least leave me some part, however small !
Did not S. Paul say, "Yet not I, but the grace of God
in me." Then I have my share in this supernatural
action. Yes, but so small a share that it cannot beget
pride, otherwise the Apostle would not have said :

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 77

Quis te discernit? — "What distinguishes thee from
others ?" Yes, it is from God that I have received even
what I do of my own free will, and even that by which
I have freely done it. Deus est qui operatic? in nobis
et velle et perficere.

If it is true that I am a created being, it is strictly
true that my nothingness extends to my activity as
well as to the depths of my nature.*

Reflections and affections. — Astonishment at our
sentiments of pride. A clear view of their error and
injustice. The grandeur of humility foreshadowed.

Its place. — It is to be found at the basis of every
right action and of every virtue. The need of it is not
a merely moral need of the utmost importance.

Humility partakes of the same nature as grace, and
is just as indispensable.

The whole of this doctrine may be summed up in
these significant words : God has the right to exact
humility from us, for He has the right to maintain
order in His creation. He cannot properly allow us
an atom of pride.

Let us represent to ourselves this just and Sovereign
Lord, His hands full of graces, watching to see where
He shall bestow them. He is perfectly free to choose,
and He may turn away from me. Let us try to

* It is not the object of this meditation to discuss the
opinions of theologians reconciling the liberty of man with
the working of God; our dependence and frailty appear in
every system of thought ; and that is sufficient for us.

To see how is not necessary : what we do not see, we
know ; and our reasons for belief are well grounded.

Before understanding the manner of God's action in His
creatures, we should have to understand how they were pro
duced. Since creation is a mystery, mystery must necessarily
envelop its consequences. But on the other hand, the truth
of creation invests them with its own certitude.

;8 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

understand the text: Deus super bis resistit! . . .
Humilibus autem dat gratiam — " He resisteth the
proud, but giveth grace unto the humble."

Before Him let us make ourselves very small, and
remain very submissive and dependent. We should
love to prostrate ourselves in adoration before Him —
it is the attitude that becomes us.

And if, before men, such an attitude is inconvenient,
let us keep the sentiment of it in our hearts, a deep
sense of our own littleness that will at least serve to
make us modest in our deportment.

RESOLUTION. — To contemplate in myself the
unceasing action of God. To do nothing without Him
— a source of joy as well as of humility. To make
myself familiar to-day with this thought.

THIRD MEDITATION
EXERCISE X

THE NECESSITY OF SPECIAL GRACES

First point : Their necessity in order to persevere in well
doing.

Second point : Applications.

Third point : Humility as the saving virtue.

Evening Preparation. — To-morrow we are to
approach a subject not only based upon sound reason,
but of the greatest importance to humility. We shall
see that without special graces, to which we have no
real claim, we could not resist certain temptations ; and
that, should we succumb to them, without such graces

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 79

we could never rise again. Furthermore, simple perse
verance in the spiritual life depends absolutely upon
their aid.

And it is not only myself, poor, imperfect creature
that I am, but the greatest saint among men also lives
under this hard condition; like me he, too, must
confess his own utter helplessness.

Ah ! if only I could realise this as S. Philip Neri did
when, each morning, he tremblingly breathed forth
this prayer : " O my God ! do not trust me. Lay Thy
Hand upon my head, for without Thee there is not a
fault that I may not be guilty of this day." Now this
fear, even in him, was perfectly justified; one act of
pride, for instance, depriving him of certain graces,
might have led to his fall.

A feeling of fear ; a lively sense of my need of God ;
a desire to sound to its depths this difficult and
important truth. These are what are necessary to me.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace to feel that profound
sense of fear that casts us down at the feet of God
broken and submissive.

I. The need of special graces for perseverance in
well-doing. — Man is assured of receiving all the graces
he needs, but he is not certain of corresponding with
them. For this he must have special succour, which
none of us can claim as strictly our due. This succour
consists in the intensity of grace itself.

Listen to the Council of Trent : " Man in a state of
grace cannot persevere in this state except by the
special help of God."

Let us weigh each word.

8o THE PATH OF HUMILITY

1. It concerns man in the state of grace — that is,
man possessing the supernatural life, man having the
right to ordinary graces.

It seems that such a man should have all that is
necessary to the attainment of his end. Yet, consider
ing his frailty, it is not enough.

2. It concerns every man, though he be a saint.
But surely a saint has an indubitable right to these
graces ! Not at all.

3. It is a question not of perfecting or of improving
ourselves in this state, but of persevering in it. But
can I not maintain myself where I am, and keep what
I have, if I desire it with all my heart ? No, for with
out special help even this desire would be lacking.

4. It is a question of real incapability. The holy
Council does not say difficulty, or great difficulty; it
says impossibility — non posse.

II. Applications. — Let us meditate upon these con
clusions :

1. In order to persevere for any considerable time,
a special grace is necessary.

2. In order to persevere in face of great danger, an
equal grace is required.

3. The brevity of life is often a special gift.

4. The choice of a favourable moment for our death
is always so.

O God, I have perhaps before me" some years of
existence. I shall be lost if I do not obtain special
grace from Thee.

O God, some great danger may assail me suddenly
when I am unprepared. If Thy special grace does not
support me, I shall succumb to it. O God ! I may be
unfaithful in my later years, in my old age, on the last

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 81

day of my life; I may sin gravely, and without Thy
special grace may be surprised by death.

If, falling into mortal sin, I were to lose my soul's
life, in myself I have nothing that would enable me to
recover it; I could do nothing to deserve that God
would give it back to me ; I should not even know how
to dispose myself properly to receive it, nor how to
pray earnestly enough to obtain it, without a special
grace !

Let us try to feel clearly what it is to be thus at the
mercy of God, to keep ourselves prostrate before Him
in an attitude of total dependence, and to dread as a
signal impertinence the attitude of pride.

III. Humility as the saving virtue. — Fearful and
depressed, I cast anxious looks around me. My con
dition appears unendurable. Sin is the cause of it.
. . . I cannot depend on myself. ... I can expect
nothing from Divine justice. Am I faced with an
insoluble problem ? No, for the Divine Mercy solves
it, stooping to my unworthiness with the tenderness of
a mother, and reassuring my fears with unhoped-for
promises of pardon, help, grace, and even love. And
the engagements made by this Divine Mercy are
sacred, and constitute an order of mercy as formal as
the order of justice.

We must clearly remember this : that if the regime
3f justice has its laws, that of mercy has also its laws,
which are consequent upon its very nature.

Under the rule of justice, right is the condition;
ander the rule of mercy, humility is the condition. If
[ will make myself humble, if I will recollect at all
:imes my own helplessness, if I will keep myself from
despising others, and if I continue to pray, I shall

6

82 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

fulfil the law, and God, holding to His engagements,
will do His part ; in spite of my misery, He will love
me, He will protect me, He will give me His grace.
What I could not claim from His justice I shall
infallibly receive from His mercy.

Mercy and humility are correlative terms. Misery
abases us as well as humility ; but misery is the result
of our condition, humility results from our will.

Mercy loves the misery that humbles itself, and
rescues it.

I understand now why the Saints attribute the gifts
of perseverance to humility.

If I am humble, I remain under the law of universal
submission. I dare not make any distinction in God's
wishes, Lnd choose to comply only with those which
bind under pain of sin. Nor should I murmur in face
of difficult duties or sad circumstances, for if I do not
strictly owe God certain degrees of submission, neither
is He bound to give me certain graces.

The role of prayer is very clearly brought out in
this connection. By it I may obtain what I neither
have nor deserve. The more I feel the weight of these
tremendous truths, the more I shall feel the need of
prayer. How heartily I shall repeat the cry of the
sacred Liturgy : Deus, in adjutorium meum intende !
How I shall tremble when I repeat : Et ne nos inducas
in tentationem! How I shall address myself in suppli
cation to those who can intercede for me, to Mary, to
the Saints, and to the angels ! What a note of faith
I shall put into the all-powerful words : " We ask it
for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord !"

The grace that I implore at this instant, the grace
of graces, is that I may become humble. I shall

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 83

incessantly plead for this, and in order to obtain my
petition I will be as lowly as the woman of Canaan.
I will be humble, for I wish to be saved.

RESOLUTION. — To see myself at the mercy of God,
as I am to-day and shall be to-morrow, always, even
unto death. At the same time to fear any want of
confidence in God Who is my Father.

FOURTH MEDITATION

EXERCISE XI

OUR CONDITION

First point : The nature of our liberty.
Second point : Our evil inclinations.
Third point : The world and the devil.
Fourth point : Circumstances.

Evening Preparation. — To-morrow's meditation will
develop the preceding one, and in a manner illustrate
it. An analysis of our position with regard to good
and evil will show us the poverty of our own resources
to sustain our virtue, and the power of the enemy that
seeks its overthrow.

The sight of our precarious position will prove to
us the need of special help, and thus to the impression
made by the disturbing meditation of yesterday will
be added the force of a reasoned conviction.

I will apply all my attention to this research, which
I am undertaking not to establish a truth of faith by
reasoning, but to increase my knowledge of it.

O my God, can it be a matter of sorrow to one who
loves Thee, to own dependence on Thee for salvation ?

84 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

O my God, to one who trusts Thee can the sense of
utter helplessness be distasteful ? O my God, if my
misery appears to me to be limitless, Thy mercy is
infinite, and this mercy is ever within my reach, so
long as I retain the conviction of my own weakness,
and am ready to cry : " Pity ! O my Father !"

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — In order that conviction may follow, to
ask for grace to see clearly the circumstances render
ing a special intervention of mercy necessary.

I. The nature of our liberty. — Let us first consider
the nature of this frail instrument by the aid of which
we may make our eternity happy or unhappy — our
liberty.

I am conscious of it, with its frequent hesitations and
variations; it is disturbed by diverse successive
influences, and is profoundly dependent upon the
impressions which strike it. Good influences and.
good motives are needful for its right governance.

Imprudence of choice and a weakness for unwhole
some influences will be the means of its undoing. Now
I must remember that even after a lifetime of fidelity
my liberty remains essentially defectible.

O God, with what joy do I give Thee back my
liberty, to subject it to Thy power, to trust it to Thy
mercy ! Take it, govern it, sustain it, and at need
extend to it Thine inexhaustible pardon.

O my God, to address Thee thus is surely to begin
to be humble ?

II. Our evil inclinations. — Among those fatal in
fluences which lead us to abuse our liberty, our
inclinations take the first place. They are inherent in

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 85

our being. A simple want of balance is their origin.
They disguise themselves under countless appearances
of good, and if they slumber, they are none the less to
be feared, for their awaking may find us self-confident
and unarmed. With or without our will they persist
in the depths of our nature. Encouraged, they master
us ; combatted, they remain a latent influence always
secretly at work.

Our inclinations tend towards evil rather than
towards good. The Church teaches this, experience
proves it, and original sin explains it.

Only the sophists hold that man, au fond, is always
good. He may vaguely wish to be so, but in practice
he confuses what is good with what seems good to
him, and it is often the latter that he chooses. There
again he allows himself to be deceived by appearances,
placing his good solely in enjoyment, wishing to
enjoy and to enjoy immediately.

This misguided propensity acts upon liberty by
illusion and attraction.

We may well be horror-stricken when we look into
the depths of ourselves ! In order the better to
illumine these depths, let us suppose that there is
neither hell to dread nor God to love ; neither reputa
tion to keep up nor the loss of it to fear ; and let us ask
ourselves to what pitch we should then carry our
excesses and what our life would be. It would be
exactly what our inclinations would make it, if they
were not restrained. Now these inclinations exist,
though under control, and they are, alas ! ourselves.

If habit is added to this innate power, what a
tyranny we fall under ! Liberty is then enslaved and
disinherited; horror of evil is no longer operative;

86 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

evil inclinations grow, bearing us away like a torrent ;
the consciousness of past weaknesses robs us of all
courage ; and what grievous and even despotic habits
are formed by our countless failings !

In such a pass, who will succour us ? God's mercy
alone can do so. And what will attract His mercy ?
Humility. Persons have been known who, in the
midst of an evil career, have repented, and, plunging
themselves into humility as into a place of refuge,
have not been rejected by the Divine Mercy.

III. The world and the devil. — The world that was
cursed by the Saviour envelops us like an atmosphere,
and penetrates us with its poisons as epidemics do
with their infection.

Nothing influences a man so much as the conduct
of other men. What everyone does, we instinctively
suppose may be done; and argument breaks down
before this irrational opinion.

The Saints, who are not such free-thinkers as we are,
know the devil's power and the extent of his activity.
But his influence is most dangerous to those who are
unaware of it. We cannot flee the world nor avoid
the devil, but we must be on the watch lest we become
enervated by the spirit of the one and fall a victim to
the cunning of the other.

The devil is ever ready to take advantage of a
favourable opportunity, and our inclinations are only
too apt to become his accomplices in his efforts to
ensnare our thoughtless liberty.

What will become of us if our pride, alienating us
from the Heart of God, leaves us at the mercy of such
enemies ?

IV. Circumstances. — In circumstances such as we

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 8;

have described, free though we are we shall most
certainly succumb.

God knows them all, even the most trying. He
measures the degree of resistance we can offer, and He
knows that in certain cases this degree, sufficient in
itself, will be rendered totally inadequate by our own
weakness.

In such cases will He leave us to ourselves or will
He deliver us ? Once we are engaged in battle, will
He come to our aid, or will He permit us to fall ?
God alone knows. If He removes the danger or
strengthens our resistance, it is a grace which is not
our due. How complete, then, is our dependence !

O my God, Thou knowest the concourse of events ;
Thou foreseest those days of idle enervation, when the
soul abates her watchfulness and the energy of the
will is relaxed. Before Thou dost determine to grant
the special help Thou designest, Thou dost survey the
dispositions of the soul that is in danger. If Thou
seest her humble and submissive, Thou stretchest forth
Thy hand and she is saved. If Thou seest her
hardened in pride, Thou dost turn away Thy face, and
she is lost.

O God, O Father, I have no distrust of Thee ! I
only fear myself, and I shall not fear myself if I hide
myself in the bosom of Thy mercy. I do indeed desire
to enter there and never to go out again. I will study
lovingly Thy beneficent laws ; I will learn to be gentle
and indulgent to others as Thou art towards me; to
expect no esteem for any excellence in myself, for Thou
alone art the Author of it, and it is none of mine.

All the pains of my poor life, every slight, every
neglect, every disappointment, and even the deepest

88 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

humiliation, I will accept, my God and Father, as the
united action of Thy justice and Thy mercy, as the
providential means of my present rehabilitation and
of my future glory.

O my God, hast Thou not given me Thy Son, Jesus ?
With Him I am sure of Thee. Living in Him I am
sure of myself. O Jesus, visit my nothingness, inform
and animate it. Let me live in Thee, love in Thee, and
with Thee go forward.

O God, O Father, Thou givest me an overwhelming
sense of my helplessness only to draw me to Thine
Arms ! What happiness to rest there for ever ! I
depend on Thee and press myself ever more closely to
Thine adorable Bosom !

RESOLUTION. — To take pity on my own vain self-
confidence, supplicating God to heal my blindness.

REMARKS ON THE TWO PRECEDING
MEDITATIONS

The study of any kind of life, whether it be the life
of the soul, the life of the body, or even the humble life
of the plant, fills us with astonishment not unmixed
with fear. Everything appears so delicate, so complex,
so fragile, that every moment we expect to see the
organism destroyed by the slightest accident. The
perusal of medical books has this effect.

Happily, experience reassures us. Our being
appears too frail to exist, yet it does exist; too weak
to resist so many destructive agencies, yet it endures.
Thus it is in the supernatural order. Its life seems to

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 89

be perpetually threatened, yet our knowledge of the
facts allays our fears. There is ever in play, as a
constant remedy, that marvellous power that we call
Providence, but which here may receive the better
name of Mercy.

1. As a matter of fact, there is no Christian who has
not largely in his power to avoid every mortal sin, and
to lift himself up again if he sins.

2. There is not a soul who cannot obtain by prayer
all that he needs; and not one who, for a single
moment, is deprived of the power to pray.

3. What we cannot, perhaps, do to-day we shall be
able to do to-morrow, if we use well every little grace
we have. (Gratia remote sufficient es^}

4. Certain aids which are not strictly our due, will
infallibly be given to us ; and it is of no consequence
to us that they are not ours by right if they are granted
to us by favour.

5. At the day of judgment, each soul will be com
pelled by the evidence to admit that God has been
good, and very good, to her; there will have been no
exception to this rule, for we are under the dispensa
tion of mercy. Therefore, let us not forget that we are
also under the obligation of humility.

go THE PATH OF HUMILITY

FIFTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE XII

OUR FAULTS

First point : An examination of their cause.
Second point : The judgment assigned to them.

Evening Preparation. — Here we set foot on our own
territory, for nothing is so much our own as sin. It is
ours and ours alone, the only thing in which God is
not.

Let us step into this dreary land with courage, and
set ourselves to explore it thoroughly.

Too often we have run our eyes absently over it, as
if it were a familiar road where nothing can surprise us.

We must learn to see ourselves clearly and to judge
ourselves fairly if we are to arrive at our true worth.
Do not let us permit ourselves to pass over our
humiliating discoveries with this thought : I am not
the only one !

Though others may be sinners, are we less guilty ?
A prison may be full of criminals, but each individual
must bear his own disgrace. Man is confronted with
God alone. Tibi soli peccavi.

Were he only face to face with himself, with his
conscience, his dignity, his ideal, these three great
things would accuse him without any regard to like
faults committed by other men.

And besides, what is our rank among sinners ? We
shall never know until the last day. It is neither the
number nor the apparent gravity of faults that deter-

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 91

mines the degree of guilt. Farther on we shall see
what is the attitude that humility imposes upon us
with regard to others; here we are chiefly concerned
to ascertain the judgment we ought to pass upon our
selves and upon our work; and if we arrive at a
reasonable persuasion of our small personal worth, if
we feel abased before God and before our conscience,
we shall find it very easy to deny ourselves all con
tempt for others, all arrogance, and all susceptibility.

We shall have, besides, sufficient logic not to aspire
to a particular esteem that we know we do not deserve.

0 my God, help me to know myself truly. Disperse
the illusions which obscure from me the gravity of my
misdeeds, and keep me from exaggerations which will
hinder me from arriving at the truth. I wish to judge
myself as Thou Thyself judgest me.

1 will not set out with the preconceived idea that in
order to be humble, it is necessary to believe oneself
ill and miserable ; I will study the matter coldly, with
the freedom of an independent mind, and with the
minute care of one who is bent solely on the quest for

truth, and on arriving at just conclusions.
,>•

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace of clear illumination
on my life, and great loyalty in judging it.

I. The examination of causes. — I. Deeds. — This is
a kind of general confession, renewed before God
alone. It is a secret and sorrowful review of the actions
of our arbitrary liberty.

It is a good plan to divide the life into successive
periods, and to pause upon the dominating feature of
each.

92 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

It should be possible to arrive at an approximate
number of faults, at least of grave faults.

We will fix our attention on the most humiliating
faults, if our imagination is not likely to suffer from it.

2. Motives. — The true ones, those we do not avow.
The motives of faults are always bad ; some are worse
than others, some are abominable. In the main, it is
for self-gratification that we have sinned.

Even in our good actions we shall find corrupt
motives. Sometimes we shall find that they have been
inspired by the craving to appear better than we are.

3. Graces. — Side by side with the story of ingrati
tude runs the story of mercy : the privilege of a
religious education, favourable environment, graces of
piety, even of fervour, graces of preservation. What
should we have been without them ? Repentance long
awaited and almost miraculously granted. Let us
count the number of our absolutions . . . and of our
fresh falls. ... If we had not counted upon this
ready pardon, perhaps we should have sinned less.

We should feel astonishment that God's Providence
should have been so good and so persevering, and a
still greater astonishment at our ingratitude and per
sistent estrangement, . . . and we were not even
happy !

Our attitude to-day is not exactly that of repentance,
but it is that of humility. Peccatum meum contra me
est semper. Faults may be effaced, and perhaps their
effects ; but deeds never.

II. The judgment assigned. — i. From the point of
view of our personal worth, what trust do we deserve ?

Trust can be placed only in uprightness of character
and firmness of soul.

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 93

Now, to be continually alternating from faults to
repentance, and from repentance to fresh faults, is not
to govern our lives.

To succumb to the least temptation, sometimes
without resistance, just because, after a short time,
tiresome habits return, is not to be masters of ourselves.

We have willed to do better, and so we fancy we
have changed, and then we have fallen again. What
does our will count for ? We say to ourselves again
and again : " How foolish I am !" and yet reason, that
sees so clearly, has no power to control us.

Sometimes the lower instincts gain such an
ascendancy over reason itself that they furnish it with
false justifications.

Truly evil has too often been my master, and I have
no right to self-confidence.

2. From the point of view of personal dignity, have
we any claim to honour ?

Honour is allied to dignity. Now dignity demands
that we hold to our rank without derogating from it,
and that we unfalteringly adhere to our word.

How many times and to what extent have I not
disgraced my Christian dignity, and perhaps even my
dignity as a man ?

I have allowed derogatory principles to enter my
soul and to affect the dispositions of my body.

Have not caprice, passion, egotism, and pride too
often replaced as motives the noble love of goodness ?

And still I wrould fain believe myself worthy of
honour !

Is he worthy of honour who is a breaker of his word ?

I have given pledges in full cognisance of their
meaning, pledges to conscience, to my confessor, to

94 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

my God. The breaking of a single pledge would dis
honour a man of the world, and I cannot count the
number of my defections.

In truth, have I not lost all personal dignity ? and
to what honour can I aspire ?

3. From the point of view of my ideal, how do I
stand ?

My ideal was my possible history, written by the
goodness of God ; it was the series of gifts which were
to have been offered to me if I were faithful. It was
the perpetual growth of my personality, and my
destiny that should have grown ever more and more
beautiful with time.

What an ideal ! — and to what a condition has it
given place ! Graces rendered fruitless, effort refused,
diminution everywhere. After each absolution, the
plan restored, though on a smaller scale, but again
disfigured by failure.

I see God working incessantly to remake it, and
myself working no less industriously to &;z-make it.

The ideal realised would have meant the embellish
ment and elevation of my whole being. What have I
made of it ? And what am I ? Ugliness and baseness
— what a contrast !

Gradually the action of God in me has decreased in
power; His image has faded; His joy has gone out !

Ah ! I have no refuge but in confusion, confession,
and repentance. I have no refuge except in the sin-
cerest humility !

O magnanimous God, Thou wilt not strike him who
humbles himself even to the dust. O God of pity, pity
the beggar who has naught but the rags of his poverty
to show Thee.

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 95

In this poor man, O heavenly Father, behold the
features, the disfigured features, of Jesus, Thy well-
beloved Son ! Thou wilt not ignore His likeness in
me. Have compassion on His glory. His glory ?
Oh ! how pure and great it will be if from a miserable
being Thou wilt make a new creature, good and
beautiful, strong and tender, confident and generous,
and above all humble.

Put far from me in the future all my faults, I desire
never to commit another ; but, if it must be so, leave me
some humbling weakness ; leave me above all a lively-
sense of my own unworthiness, that it may accompany
me in my progress and in the success of my zeal,
stimulating continually my gratitude, my desire for
reparation, and in a profound humility that sacred love
which is Thy life and mine, the divine fruit of Thy
mercy and delight of my repentance !

RESOLUTION. — To feel the confusion of an unhappy
being appearing before a tribunal, and who has there
to face grievous accusations. To keep this impression
throughout the day.

SIXTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE XIII

PRAYER EDITED BY POPE URBAN VIII.
(Placed at the beginning of the Roman Breviary.)

Evening Preparation. — In this meditation we shall
seek to establish ourselves in humility, rather by the
sincere and ardent expression of our feelings than by
the aid of reasoning.

0 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

In acquiring a virtue, to be convinced of our need of
it is of the first importance ; but sentiment is, perhaps,
a more powerful lever. It stirs the whole soul, and
even deepens our consciousness of our need. Con
viction belongs to the intelligence, but the expression
of a sentiment is an act of the will, and it is in the will
that virtue is formed and perfected.

We shall have but one aim to-morrow : to plunge
ourselves into humiliation. With the heartfelt words
of a saint, we will deplore our ingratitude, our ever-
recurring egotism, our countless failures; and also,
with a great access of confidence, we will throw our
selves unreservedly upon God's mercy, surrendering
ourselves to Jesus our Saviour.

0 my God, grant me to-morrow a warmer heart, a
softened heart, a heart at least striving to feel. I do
not ask Thee for tears, but for real sorrow. O my
God, bestow upon my soul that inclination towards
humility that alone can make me humble, but grant me
also that confidence which alone can make me valiant.

1 am full of faults and wretchedness of myself, but
by Thy grace I may obtain the riches and beauty of
Jesus. O, Life of Jesus, like a divine seed, deign to
thrust Thy roots into the soil of our wretchedness ; one
day Thou shalt blossom in heaven.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace of a sincere repentance.
Ante oculos tuos, Domine, culpas no sir as ferimus.
Weighed down and depressed, we place before Thine
eyes, O just God our Father, the heavy burden of our
faults ! Et plagas quas accepimus conferimus — " And
we show Thee the wounds made by our sins." They

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 97

disfigure us, they make us suffer, they keep us in a
state of pitiable weakness, for they are many, deep, and
badly dressed.

Si pensamus malum quod fecimus, minus est quod
patimur, majus est quod meremur. My head bowed
down, my lips that kiss Thy feet, my tears that bathe
them, the pity I implore, all cry to Thee that I recog
nise my faults, and that I accept the punishment. The
trials of my present life, those that the future holds, all
together are nothing compared with my deserts.
Gravius est quod commisimus, levius est quod tole-
ramus.

Peccandi pcenam sentimus et peccandi pertinaciam
non vitamus. Inconceivable cowardice ! Under the
sting of punishment I burn with indignation against
myself, but under renewed temptation I find myself as
feeble as before.

Despite the graces that I have received, the resolu
tions I have made, the many chastisements I have
suffered ; despite my penitence and my regret, despite
my oft-renewed aspirations, evil still has the power to
conquer me, to lift its head again when trials pass !

In flagellis nostris infirmitas nostra teritur et
miquitas non mutatur — Thou breakest us and we are
not changed; we are bruised and persist in wrong
doing ! Mens cegra torquetur et cervix non flectitur —
Sad, sick, tortured, still we will not bend.

Vita in dolore suspirat, et opere non se emendat —
Our life is wasted in sorrow and lamentation, and we
find no way of return !

O human heart, O heart of mine, how feeble thou
art, and easily led astray ! How inconstant and
changeable ! Thou dost suffer from evil-doing, and

7

g8 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

thou wiliest to suffer still more; thou knowest thyself
sick, and thou dost not sincerely seek a cure !

Thou groanest in thy fetters, yet thou dost cling to
them!

Si expectas, non corrigimur. O Lord, Thy patience
is long-suffering, and by my fault it is useless ! Thou
dost wait and we do not correct ourselves.

Si vindicas, non duramus — If Thou becomest a God
of vengeance, we cannot endure it.

Confitemur in correctione quod egimus, obliviscimur
post visitationem quod flevimus — Thou comest to
chastise us, and we confess our faults; Thou with-
drawest Thyself, and presently we forget what we,
have bewailed !

Si extendas manum, facienda pr o mittimus : si
suspenderis gladium, promissa non solvimus — Thou
extendest Thy hand, and we promise everything;
Thou withdrawest the sword, and we are forsworn.

Si ferias, clamamus ut parcas, si peperceris,
peccamus ut jerias — Thou strikest and we cry for
pardon, and again we provoke Thy blows !

Habes, Domine, confitentes reosf novimus quod nisi
dimittas, recte non perimus. Ah ! at least, Lord, I do
not excuse myself ; I am guilty and I freely confess it.
This avowal solaces me; it is the unloading of my
conscience, in view of my endless falls and incessant
provocations ! If Thou dost not take pity on me I am
lost, and justly so !

Prcesta, Pater omnipotens, sine merito quod
rogamus, qui jecisti ex nihilo, qui te rogarent per
Christum, Dotninum nostram. O Almighty Father,
this being whom Thou hast Created from nothing
beseeches Thee ! He is without merit, but since Thou

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 99

hast bestowed the grace of prayer, use Thy right to
pardon. Thou puttest in my mouth the accents that
will touch Thee ; Thou armest my prayer with a name
that compels Thee; Thou seest in me Him Whom
Thou lovest, Jesus, by Whom I pray.

In this long litany of our miseries, let us study the
action of humility.

It is humility that speaks, that groans, that touches.
It is humility that gives to God His rightful place, and
to us the attitude that bents us.

It is to the tears of humility that mercy stoops, and
it is on her head that pardon descends.

It is humility that causes Jesus to put Himself in
the place of our sorry personality.

Should pride wish to raise its head, what confusion
i^and what punishment ! Pride could never soften the
-Tieart of God, nor our own !

"Our misery is the throne of the mercy of God,"
said S. Francis de Sales.

The road from the Heart of God to ours, and of ours
to His, is humility.

As soon as they are touched by the reflection of this
virtue, our miseries take on a hue of supernatural
beauty. As soon as they are touched by mercy, they
are transformed in love.

RESOLUTION. — To entertain a profound and sweet
sense of the goodness of God. "I will sing of Thy
mercies for ever."

zoo THE PATH OF HUMILITY

SEVENTH MEDITATION— (i)
EXERCISE XIV— (i)

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE SAINTS

NOTE. — If thirty days only are given to these exercises, the
two following meditations may be taken together. Though
traversing different roads, they meet at the same point : the
lively sense of our humiliating mediocrity.

Evening Preparation. — What effect should I look
for from a contemplation of the virtues of the Saints ?
A keen sense of my littleness, and also a stimulus to
my laxity, for a humility that destroys false preten
sions excites true courage.

In the presence of the virtue of the Saints we are
overpowered by a sense of greatness, such as we
experience at the foot of a high mountain or in sight
of the ocean. But we must not be satisfied with this
general impression, we must pass on to an examination
of the details of their superiority, their virtues, their
sentiments, their works, . . . and at the same time
consider our virtues, our sentiments, our works !

In an uneducated society the man who can read
prides himself on his accomplishment. Do you admire
him ? No ; then beware of a vain esteem which sets
you above your fellows.

But must we compare ourselves with the Saints,
whose lives were exceptional, if we are to form a just
appreciation of our worth ? Yes, since we pretend to
a special esteem. In fact, the measure of desert is
found in what is exalted and not in what is mediocre.

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 101
For what matter for pride is there in being a little
less debased than some poor wretch ?

In the presence of all superiority, one of two feelings
may be aroused : that of despair, which, feeling itself
unable to reach such a height, gives up the attempt;
or that of courage, true greatness of soul, which repeats
with S. Augustine, " Can I not do what others have
done?" Tears of holy emulation nil the eyes, an
almost violent emotion swells the breast, and, with eyes
directed to heaven, we cry : " I can do all in Him Who
strengthens me!"

The proud man reflects upon his own insufficiency,
and sinks down; the humble considers the Divine
strength, and casts himself upon it. Oh ! Thou Who
makest Saints, commence to fashion me to humility.
I shall be in Thy hands like common but malleable
clay, lending itself to receive the likeness of Thine
image.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace of such a vision of the
moral beauty of the Saints, that I shall feel nothing
but a profound self-contempt.

The Apostles.— §. Peter, S. Andrew, S. Paul. They
belong no more to themselves, the Spirit of God
possesses and governs them; their zeal extends over
the whole world and stoops to the lowest slave.

Weariness, persecution, the sword only stimulate
them; scourgings rejoice them; miracles accompany
them. Towns, peoples, fall at their feet. They die
and are buried in obscurity, the time and place of their
martyrdom often remaining unknown.

And what of my zeal ? my courage ? my abnegation ?

102 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

my divine conquests ? my personal gifts ? I regard
them with pity ! and the thought of my pride covers
me with confusion ! Yet I accept praise, and I am
complacent about the little things I do.

What a humiliation, to set myself beside an Apostle
and to^measure myself by him !

The Virgin Martyrs. — S. Lucy, S. Agnes, S. Agatha.
They loved Jesus only, and they loved Him with
holy passion. Their souls are a heaven in which a
pure and gentle light is diffused. Not a shadow of
an unworthy thought. Love has gone on growing
until it has left no room for dreams of sense. Never
would they belong to a mortal being. Smiling, they
bow the head to the executioner ; to die is to be with
Jesus. 0 quam -pulchra est casta generatio cum clari-
tate! — "How beautiful is this noble race in its
dazzling purity !"

Let us set our own souls and our own lives beside
this whiteness, this peace, this gentle love : imagina
tions, dreams, torments, struggles, ... all the past
that I have forgotten but which God remembers.

Ah ! how can we be proud of our virtue, preserved
perhaps, perhaps restored, but always so imperfect !

The Hermit Saints. — S. Anthony, S. Pacomius,
S. Hilary. Let us follow them into the desert.

Silence and forgetfulness envelop them ! The eye
of God is the only star that lights their way; their
prayer is almost continuous, and sleep and food are
curtailed to a degree only just sufficient to preserve
life. They undertake terrible mortifications each day,
each night, their whole life through.

Let me see myself beside them, enjoying every
comfort of life ! Perhaps my health demands it. But

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 103

it would be absurd for anyone to think I am mortified
or to suppose it myself. Ah ! how easy it should be
for me to be humble and lowly !

The Doctors of the Church. — S. Ambrose, S.
Augustine, S. Chrysostom, S. Thomas. Their know
ledge is so wide that even we of the present day are
confounded by it. The influence they exercised in
their own period, and that they will continue to
exercise until the end of time, testifies to their high
worth.

And yet I am conceited about my little knowledge
— shallow and of small worth, very limited, and just
what is to be found in countless books.

I should rejoice immoderately to see that my
influence was felt a hundred paces off !

The Contemplatives. — These form the supreme
hierarchy of souls : S. Francis of Assisi, S. Catherine,
S. Theresa. What ascents ! what heights ! what
visions ! what flights ! — and in their service of God,
what love ! what union ! Purity, brilliant lucidity, in
all their intellectual faculties ; fiery affections ; supreme
detachment; marvellous celestial favours; souls in a
sense melted and liquefied, moulding themselves mar
vellously to the fashion of the heart of God !

On my knees, my eyes raised to heaven, I watch the
unfolding of this vision, and in its light I behold
myself dull and coarse. Can I be of the same nature
as these wondrous beings ? What kind of prayers are
mine, and what is their result ? What is my attention
to God ? Is my love ever growing purer, higher, more
intimate, warmer, brighter ?

The. Unknown Souls. — They have passed their lives
in work, in prayer, in suffering. They did good so

104 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

quietly that it was never noised abroad. God alone
knows what graces have been bestowed at their inter
cession. Others have reaped the harvest that they
have sown.

What heroism has been shown by poor women
struggling with the harshness of existence !

They looked calm and were supposed to be happy—
and so they were indeed, but in another way. We
have perhaps known such ; have we appreciated them ?

RESOLUTION. — To keep in mind one of these great
groups of holy souls, and to think of them many times
during the day.

SEVENTH MEDITATION— (2)

EXERCISE XIV— (2)

IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD

Evening Preparation. — Our aim in this meditation
is to extinguish the vain lights of self-esteem by a
contemplation of the beauty of the Infinite. We must
try to reserve some long time for this meditation, and
to keep ourselves in great interior peace. We need
long and close attention if we are to understand any
thing of the mysterious splendour of the Supreme
Being.

We must be wholly detached in our interior as well
as our exterior senses, that we may be open to those
sights that are beyond sense.

Consider one by one the Divine perfections, and set
beside them your own poverty and ugliness.

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 105

This comparison is easy, suggestive, and convinc
ing, and it will fill you with sentiments of confusion
that will influence your practical life.

To feel oneself abased and annihilated before God
is to dispose oneself not to value self before others.

This evening, notice what are the most unworthy
tendencies and the most humiliating faults of your life,
and propose to yourself to contrast them with the
Divine perfections in such a manner as will best show
up their ugliness : inalienable purity opposed to our
stains, serene immutability opposed to our incon^
stancy, sovereign peace to our agitations and
troubles, etc.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace to feel such a sense of
the Divine grandeur as will absorb all feeling of vain
personal esteem.

From the contemplation of the Saints let us ascend
to the contemplation of God. Before the perfection of
God the sanctity of man appears as a drop of water
compared with the majestic ocean, or a tiny night-light
with the brightness of the sun.

To the greater number of souls, the mysterious
abysses of the Divine attributes, where thought loses
itself in ravishment, are a sealed book. The heart
needs great purity to plunge into their depths, and
the intellect entire attention to understand their
silences.

We will not here attempt to trace the route to those
abysses, and those who have found the way of light
will need no aid. But we may be allowed to contrast
our littleness with such majesty, as a painter places a

106 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

man at the foot of a great monument in order to give
a true idea of its size.

O God, Thou art all-powerful, and I am infinitely
weak !

Thou art immensity, and I occupy an imperceptible
point in space !

Thou art wisdom, peace, harmony, measure; and I
am error, improvidence, haste, trouble, disorder !

Thou art sanctity, pure, exalted, complete, the im
perious enemy of all evil ; while I am defect, lust, sin !

Thou art immutability; what Thou art, Thou
remainest always; what Thou thinkest, what Thou
wiliest, Thou thinkest, Thou wiliest, eternally. While
I am nothing but inconsistency and instability.

My impressions and my tastes change like a passing
cloud !

Thou art beauty, without flaw, without shadow,
without decline; everything which on earth delights,
enchants, and beguiles us from ourselves, is but a dim
reflection of Thy ravishing beauty !

The vault of heaven of azure blue, with its pensive
stars ; soft winds of spring, drunk with the perfume of
a thousand fl owers ; noble voices of the forests and the
waters; streams of light filling every place with
brightness; the whole concert of nature — what are
you ? A little movement, an appearance, a nothing.

Soul of man, genius of man, what are you ? A
higher reflection of the eternal Intelligence, but only
a reflection : heart of man, source of all 'our feelings,
spring of our generosities, greater, higher than all in
thy love, thou art but a spark in comparison with the
infinite Love !

This comparison of the perfections of God with our

REASONS FOR BEING HUMBLE 10;

unspeakable miseries provokes two kinds of reflections
and sentiments :

1. What am I beside Him? What absurdity to
compare myself with Him ! How empty is pride !

2. What does it mean to offend God ? It is to attack
all His perfections, and they rise against us and
condemn us, for of what an injury, a profanation and
folly, are we guilty !

How sweet and gentle will that humility be that is
the outcome of these two considerations — the con
sideration of God, and the consideration of myself.

A glance towards God nils me with confidence and
ravishment ! A glance at myself must make me sad,
but grateful and above all humble. How well might
we cry with S. Francis all through the night : " My
God and my all! My God and my all!" — the
expression of a humility full of love and of adoration.

RESOLUTION. — To be ashamed of my rags, but still
more ashamed of my pride, and to feel a holy
emulation, for is not God given to me to be my model ?
What is wanting to the Almighty to make me a saint ?
Great humility on my part.

THIRD WEEK

JESUS HUMBLE

PREPARATION FOR THE THIRD WEEK

WE must make these meditations respectfully : Jesus
is God ; with docility : Jesus is Master ; with con
fidence : Jesus is good.

He calls us in order to train us Himself. O sweet
initiation ! O sweet commerce ! O sweet hope ! He
has His examples, His lessons, and His secrets !

By His example He walks before us to show us how
to be humble.

By His words He explains His example.

In His secrets He reveals to us the humility of His
Heart : Mitis sum et humilis corde\ and He keeps this
secret for those who are lowly and for those who desire
to be so. Revelasti ea parvulis.

The heart is a fire, and its heat at times becomes its
light; we must meditate effectively. But, better than
the heart, grace is our light, and we must draw its
radiance into ourselves.

O Holy Spirit, Creator, create in me purified desires
and thoughts, a new heaven and a new earth. Teach
me Jesus. " Give to me of Jesus " : De meo accipit et
annuntiabit vobis. I wish to be humble like Jesus and
by Him.

This week will advance us in the knowledge of
humility, putting in a clearer light truths already
meditated, and extending our view of them. It will
excite us to the practice of this virtue by the force of
the most authoritative example.

in

112 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

May it truly transform our heart, that it may also
transform our life !

I

To the end that these meditations may exercise
upon our resolutions the full extent of their influence,
let us disengage ourselves from certain ideas which
represent the actions and sentiments of Jesus as being
too much outside our own condition to serve for an
example to us.

Certainly the state to which the soul of Jesus is
exalted by His personal union with the Word is so
different from ours that it is impossible for us to state
precisely its nature and its laws. Expressions fail us;
but if the far horizon is lost to view, the nearer prospect
is in sight. Let us approach this.

The aspect of Jesus suffering and humiliated
suggests two inquiries. Could He really suffer ? — He
Who even here on earth enjoyed the Beatific Vision !
Could He, Who knew Himself to be so great, sincerely
entertain lowly opinions of Himself? Externally,
humiliation and suffering were evident; but did they
affect Him interiorly ? Were they not perhaps simply
appearances designed to give us a great lesson of
example ?

At any rate, if these humiliations and sufferings
were real, Jesus had His divine virtue to support Him.
He was the Infinite, the all-powerful, the pre-eminently
strong ; and as for me, I am only a poor little creature,
full of weakness ! His humility accorded with His
stature. ... I can scarcely raise my eyes high
enough to contemplate His greatness, how can my life
hope to attain to it? Let me fall on my knees in

JESUS HUMBLE 113

admiration of such a prodigy, but do not ask me to
reproduce it.

II

According to such a view, the humility of Jesus was
only an appearance, an ornament, a lifeless model !
and His example can have no power to arouse my
emulation, for it belongs to conditions different from
my own. But such a view is false, utterly false. The
humility of Jesus, my Brother, is not merely an
appearance, nor an example which is out of my reach,
with which God deceives me. Could the God of justice
force us to submit to humiliations which He had not
Himself suffered ? Could the God of wisdom impose
on us a burden which His divine shoulders alone could
bear?

Jesus felt the shame of humiliation with that natural
repulsion which the sense of personal dignity inspires ;
and He accepted it, as we shall presently see, with a
feeling of its justice.

These two conditions were indeed necessary : to
feel, and to accept — to feel really in His man's heart,
to accept freely with His will, as a submissive Son — if
His humility was to be a virtue, and His acts were to
possess any merit.

The Soul of Jesus resembled our soul as His Body
resembled our body. Both were made of the same
elements as are ours ; His Body had blood, nerves, and
organs like ours ; His Soul like ours was endowed with
intelligence, will, and sensibility.

If our human blood ran in His veins, our human
feelings palpitated in His heart.

Ii4 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

III

Two great differences, nevertheless, may be seen in
His manner of feeling- and ours ; but these two differ
ences only add force to His example, Jesus, better
endowed than we are, felt more keenly; Jesus, more ;
virtuous than we are, accepted more filially.

We know that the richer the nature, the greater the
capacity for suffering : elevation gives a clearer vision ;
greater refinement seizes the least shades; greater
constancy makes forgetfulness impossible.

Thus our adorable Jesus has suffered all the more,
and has all the more right to offer us His actions and
His sentiments as true examples.

Doubtless, His example will always leave us far
behind, and we shall be outdone not only by the
greatness of His actions, but by the perfection of His
self-sacrifice. Jesus foresaw suffering and loved it —
Desiderio desideravi.

But, then, where was the merit if it cost Him
nothing ? if He did it all for love ?

Since when has love that makes everything easy
been regarded as decreasing merit ?

Do we feel less gratitude for an affection whose
warmth makes a happiness of stanching our wounds
or of sacrificing to us its joys ? Since when has virtue,
that also makes every duty light, deprived actions of
their merit? In that case an increase of Divine love
and virtue would lessen the worth of our actions !

If the actions of Jesus were determined by His
immense love, they were determined freely if sorrow-;
fully, for in Jesus, we must remember, it was not the'
Divinity Who felt but our human nature, a nature

JESUS HUMBLE 115

more sensitive than ours and more accessible to
suffering. Then do not let us say : " I am not God, I
cannot do what the Almighty has done." We have
before us not God alone, but the Son of man ; and it is
He Who offers Himself for our imitation.

FIRST MEDITATION
EXERCISE XV

THE INFANCY AND HIDDEN LIFE OF JESUS
THE HUMILITY OF SELF-EFFACEMENT

Evening Preparation. — In this meditation we shall
see the humility of Jesus appearing in the quiet light
of His hidden life; in the touching mysteries of His
birth, of His presentation, of His flight into Egypt;
and in the long monotonous years that flowed slowly
by in the voluntary eclipse of Nazareth.

Thirty years out of thirty-three. What a marked
preference ! Jesus has come to speak to men, and they
are all about Him ; though He is only a child, He has
an eloquent tongue; His young heart burns with
ardent zeal, ... yet He is silent. Could He do any
thing better than save souls ? — or rather, in order to
save them, could He employ any better means than to
show Himself and to act ?

Yes, for it is humility that, by stripping a man of
all selfish preoccupation which hinders the Divine
action, by rendering him insensible to what is hard
and disconcerting, and by keeping his heart tender
and considerate towards others, paves the way to
success.

n6 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

But, for the acquisition of humility, human nature l
needs time and many victories over self. Jesus knew
that our eagerness needed this lesson.

True humility also tends to self-effacement.
Obscurity is her chosen place, the place where she
is at ease; she tends towards it with all the force of
her nature, and will remain in it if she is not called
forth by God. Ama nesciri — " Love to be unknown."

This sacred and silent retreat is like a sanctuary
where God reveals Himself and gives Himself more
intimately. How can God refuse His favours to a
heart that is full of love ?

To-morrow we will read the sacred passages which
tell of that period in the life of Jesus that was entirely
filled with gentle humility, a period so calm and
touching and beautiful.

O Mary, Joseph, and the holy angels, you who were
the only witnesses of this self-annihilation, lend me
your eyes and your hearts that I may worthily con
template Jesus in His humility.

MEDITATION

FIRST PRELUDE. — To represent to ourselves the
contrast between the vast and shining heavens where
the Word reigns, and that poor corner of the cold
earth to which the Saviour descends. To cast our
eyes towards the uncreated splendour on high, and
then to contemplate on earth the humility of a comfort
less stable. -

SECOND PRELUDE. — To ask the grace to realise
deeply the love of Jesus for all that is humbling, and
to see in His unnecessary self-abasement a supreme
lesson for myself.

I

JESUS HUMBLE 117

El Verbum caro jactum est. Let us compare the
two terms : The Word, the glorious image of the
Father ; and the flesh, vivified dust, the lowly flesh of
man. The one approaches the other until union is
accomplished. This phrase jactum est, seems to im
prison, to hide the Word in the flesh, and, as it were,
to annihilate it.

Exinanivit semetipsum! This first act was God's
alone, those that followed belonged to the Man-God.

Edictum a Ccesare. Behold Him, even before His
birth, submissive to a master; He accepts his exac
tions; Caesar is to have another subject, and Jesus is
to have neither dwelling nor cradle. Thus He wills it,
thus He has chosen.

Non erat eis locus in diversorio. This was quite
natural : they were poor and they were turned away.

Reclinavit eutn in prcesepio. The trough where the
animals fed became His cradle; a handful of straw
supported and surrounded His tender little body.
Gentle Child, asleep in the crib, You seem to repose
in humility !

Pastores want in regione ilia. Some herdsmen, poor
people, these were the first to whom He gave an
audience. He prefers them because He is humble.

Et hoc vobis signum. The littleness of the Saviour-
God is to be His sign : invenietis infantem, a little
child without word or look. In prczsepio, like a feeble
lamb in His nest of straw.

The shepherds adore Him and return home. Jesus
remains unconscious. We are not told that the
shepherds said anything, but if they did no one

n8 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

listened to them — they were such insignificant folk.
Jesus only quits the stable to go into a poor house
close by.

The angels have proclaimed the Messiah, but they
have not drawn away the veils with which humility
covers Him.

II

Postquam impleti sunt dies purgationis. Forty
days pass. They go to Jerusalem, alone, for no one
is interested in them.

In the Temple, however, they are welcomed by some
prophets; Simeon, venerated by the people, declares
Him to be the Light of nations, and Anna speaks of
Him to those who are expecting the Redeemer of
Israel.

It is a momentary glory, and then the veil of
humility once more enwraps Him ; and when the Magi
come to seek Him in Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who has
received Him in her temple, does not even know Him.

The repose of the city is troubled all day by the
caravan of these sons from the East. Sages declare
that the Messiah should be born, and born at
Bethlehem.

Bethlehem is only two leagues away, yet no one
hastens thither, nor accompanies the Magi there.
What extraordinary indifference !

Surge, fuge. In the middle of the night a voice
rings out : " Joseph, arise, take the child and flee !"

Is this all that God will do for His Son ? Think of
the power of the Almighty, and admire in Jesus His
resolute will to be accounted as nothing.

The return into Galilee is just as dependent, obscure,
and humble.

JESUS HUMBLE 119

III

Nazareth, with its long years of oblivion, is next
shown to us, a little village hidden in verdure, with
two or three streets in which strangers are seldom
seen, the silence of the houses only interrupted at
intervals by the monotonous sound of some imple
ments of toil. And in this obscure spot, where the days
and the hours pass so slowly away, Jesus, the hidden
God, dwells, unknown by those who employ Him, by
those who hear Him ! Mary and Joseph alone are
there to adore Him, but neither do they reveal Him.
His life is simply the life of a child of poor parents,
nothing more ! To the soul that sets herself in medita
tion to reproduce the scene and the details of each
day, infinite prospects unfold themselves.

She sees what passes, hears what is said, and con
templates the veritable humility that is displayed in
all those unnoticed actions.

O Jesus, Thy desire for annihilation is so evident
and so persistent that it impresses my heart and my
mind.

O Jesus, " the Way, the Truth, and Life," have pity
on my pride that misleads and torments me !

Accustom me so to love Thee, that the neglect of
creatures is no longer bitter to me. Teach me to
efface myself, that I may attract Thee; defend me
from the impulsive desire to act and to succeed.

For thirty years Thou dost prolong Thy lesson, in
order to teach me to keep the spirit of it, not merely
on occasion or from time to time, but every day of
my life.

What hast Thou found so delightful in obscurity

120 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

that Thou didst not desire to leave it ? There Thou
hast found the Infinite, for in the shade Its brightness
shines forth, and in the silence Its voice is heard.

RESOLUTION.— To wait until the hand of God draws
me out of silence and obscurity.

SECOND MEDITATION
EXERCISE XVI

PUBLIC LIFE. HUMILITY IN ACTION

First point : The humility of Jesus was simple.
Second point : It was magnanimous.

Evening Preparation. — In order fully to profit by
this meditation, we must realise that in the active life
humility changes its role ; it no longer tends to eff ace-
ment, but acts as a safeguard.

When God calls it to action, it folds itself up in the
heart without suffering decrease, and there brings its
useful influence to bear upon the exercise of the other
virtues, imparting to them that stamp of simplicity
and personal disinterestedness that gives them their
power.

To be humble in obscurity is comparatively easy,
but to remain humble under the stress of public
activity demands solid virtue and wise caution. To
delight in praise and the sight of the good we do is
such a subtle poison !

To exalt oneself to the level of a high position, and
to change our attitude as we rise, is a common tempta
tion to which many yield. Is it not proper that we

JESUS HUMBLE 121

should show ourselves, talk, do, and make a success of
things ? Is it not right to show an imposing appear
ance?

O Jesus, Thou wilt enlighten me by Thy example.
If I love Thee, it will be easy to me to follow it and to
be steadfast.

O Jesus, to put Thee in place of self and to keep
Thee within me, to act only for Thee and by Thee, is
the ideal of humility in the active life.

MEDITATION

FIRST PRELUDE. — Composition of place. Contem
plate Jesus leaving Nazareth without noise, as He has
lived there. The humility of His thirty obscure years
does not satisfy Him, He wills to commence His
ministry by more obvious humiliations. Let us watch
Him setting off on the road to the Jordan, mixing with
the crowd of publicans, and receiving the baptism of
sinners. Let us then follow Him into the desert, where
He submits to the companionship of wild beasts, and
the contact of the devil, allowing him to tempt Him
as if He were a soul liable to fall.

SECOND PRELUDE.— Let us ask the grace to be freed
from all self-confidence and dangerous self-com
placence in the esteem of others.

I. The humility of Jesus was simple. — His humility
has all the brilliance of truth, and all the charm of
simplicity. His approach is heralded by nothing
surprising; His dress is poor, His gait modest, His
head slightly bowed.

Whether He looks, or speaks, or acts, all is perfectly
natural ; Jesus does not pose.

His entourage. — There are people in working dress,

122 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

little children and their mothers, despised publicans,
and even people who have lost their reputations. He
prefers these ; He draws them to Himself and lifts them
up again, and has for them treasures of indulgence.

How can this same Heart feel such indignant
repulsion ? Jesus hates pride, and He is pitiless to
the proud Pharisees. He takes into account neither
their probity, nor their alms, nor their respect for the
law, nor their lengthy prayers. Virtue inspired by
pride only fills Him with horror.

His life is a daily privation; He has "no stone
whereon to lay His head " ; poor people receive Him
into their houses ; poor women provide for His needs. ,
For His preaching He asks neither temple nor pulpit ;
a hillock of grass, the angle of a street, the side of a
boat, suffice Him.

His language is so simple in its grandeur that all
can understand Him. It is so clear, and its truth
shines so radiantly, that the words seem to disappear.
He borrows the expressions, the customs, even the
ideas of the people.

Nothing is farther from studied elegance than His
discourses.

And His virtue, how simple it is ! Habitually Jesus
manifests nothing extraordinary. He leads an
ordinary life, He eats and drinks like everyone else,
He has His hours of weariness.

When He wishes to give Himself up to long medita
tions He withdraws to a mountain.

Doubtless, His perfect virtue betrayed itself at
every turn, but it was so entirely natural that it created
no astonishment, like a monument whose harmonious
proportions disguise its great size.

JESUS HUMBLE 123

II. The humility of Jesus was magnanimous. — As
soon as the hour designed by His Father has struck,
Jesus comes forth from obscurity, shows Himself,
speaks, and surrounds Himself with disciples. He
gains the crowd and makes the authorities tremble.
He heals the sick, raises the dead, and stills the
tempest. Yet He does these things quite naturally;
He seeks no honour, nor does He flee from gibes; to
both alike He appears indifferent.

We must admire this magnanimous humility that
frees the soul from all pusillanimity and from all
hesitation. Listen to the Divine Master revealing His
secret. " My Father in Me, He doeth the work." An
instrument must not resist, an instrument cannot be
puffed up.

Humility, when it is true, makes the heart generous.
Before a superior will, it permits neither refusal nor
reserve ; it inspires a desire for good that has God for
its sole object, and a confidence that expects every
thing from Him.

Humility that has not this character is insincere or
incomplete.

Jesus appears and speaks with authority — tanquam
'potestatem habens. He appears for what He is, He
says what it is His mission to say. He has none of
those timidities that arise from self-consciousness, nor
those set phrases for humility that often contain a
secret pride.

This example gives us some important lessons.

When we undertake a mission, let us forget ourselves
and make ourselves forgotten. Let God alone appear,
and souls be saved.

We are not to attract attention by too much repeat-

124 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

ing that we are incapable and unworthy. What does
it matter about ourselves ? Let us lend to God what
we hold from Him, and let the feeling of our nullity
go on growing with the success of our work.

At the end of his life, S. Francis of Assisi allowed
the crowds to kneel before him and to kiss the sacred
stigmata. A brother showed surprise at this. " Ah !"
said the Saint, " I do not deceive myself. It is not I
whom they come here to see. I receive this homage,
but I give it all back to God."

RESOLUTION.— In the good that I am called to do,
to see only God, and to see Him unceasingly. The
danger of self-seeking, even in the most fleeting
sentiment of complacency.

THIRD MEDITATION
EXERCISE XVII

HUMILITY OF THE HEART OF JESUS

First point : Mystery of this humility in Jesus.
Second point : Humility produced by the feeling of His
nothingness.
Third point : Humility preserved by the Beatific Vision.

Evening Preparation. — The two preceding medita
tions have shown us the humility of Jesus in its
exterior manifestations; we have seen its gentleness
and courage. To-morrow and the following days we
shall contemplate the humility of the Sacred Heart,
and we shall find it profound, even to mystery.

Let us put to ourselves without flinching the

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question that was raised at the beginning of these
meditations : How could Jesus, Infinite God and
perfect man, have a lowly opinion of Himself?
Exterior acts of humility might find some explanation
to justify them; but the sentiment, persuasion, and
certitude, that constitute true humility, appear incon
sistent. O Jesus, make me to understand this to
morrow.

Under the influence of this astounding revelation
of humility, shall I not, in my turn, be constrained to
become humble ? O Jesus, shall I hold my head high
when I see Thee lower Thine? Canst Thou have
more cause for humility than I ? or am I so blind that
I can see no reason for humility ? or so dull that I
cannot draw the right conclusions ?

O Jesus, touch my heart when Thou hast convinced
my mind. I would that my humility too should be
that of the heart, a humility inclining me to self-
abasement, and even a love for it.

O Jesus, Who dwellest in me by Thy sanctifying
grace, and Who dost animate all my actions by Thine
actual grace, fill me with Thine own delight in
humility.

Make me to love and follow Thee, even into those
depths of detachment where self is forgotten, but
where Thou and Thy joys alone are to be found.

MEDITATION

FIRST PRELUDE. — Composition of place. To repre
sent to myself one of those dark mountains where, at
night, Jesus loved to pray under the quiet light of the
stars. To see Him, kneeling, His eyes turned to
heaven, lost in the contemplation of Him Who is.

126 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Let us with holy respect strive to penetrate the secret
of the great temple of His Soul, which in Its humility
is filled with adoration and love.

SECOND PRELUDE.— To ask the grace of detach
ment from self-esteem, in a profound sense of the pre
ponderating part played by God in all my well-doing.

I. Mystery of the humility of Jesus. — Let us recall
the words of our Master : " I am meek and humble of
heart." This is the Heart upon which we are about
to meditate; the Heart, from whence arises the desire
of humility ; the Heart that has tasted its bitter sweets.

Let us gaze into this sanctuary as into a temple of
deep mystery ; we must accustom our eyes to this holy
darkness. Actions are seen, but motives are hidden,
and motives are the virtue itself. We must beg for the
light of the Holy Spirit, and ask Jesus Himself to
teach us the secret of His humility.

O Jesus, Heart of love, Thou didst desire love. To
touch my heart, to attract and delight it, Thou hast
undertaken the greatest sacrifices !

To give Thy life was much, but Thou hast also
sacrificed Thine honour. It is, then, the love of our
love that makes Thee humble !

O Jesus, wise God, devoted Saviour, Thou hast seen
pride to be the greatest evil of humanity, and its most
dangerous fault ; to draw us into the way of humility
Thou hast deigned to travel along it Thyself, that for
very shame we should blush not to follow Thee. It is,
then, O Jesus, the duty of example that makes Thee
humble !

Slowly I peruse these noble motives; I meditate
upon them with emotion.

Must I not indeed submit, and determine to make

JESUS HUMBLE 127

myself humble, that I may help Jesus to save me, prove
my love for Him, and be near Him — as near as
possible ? Yet, my Jesus, in proportion that I realise
Thy wisdom, Thy goodness, and Thy perfection, I am
the more astonished at Thy humility. Thou hast said,
" I am humble of heart," and Thou art truth ; yet
humility of heart involves a sense of lowliness, and
Thou art so great !

II. Humility produced in Jesus by a sense of His
nothingness. — We will commence by forming in our
minds an enchanting picture of Him. He is the most
beautiful of the children of men. His flesh is pure and
holy, . . . His mind is free from illusion, . . . His
heart is master of all its emotions, . . . His imagina
tion is as beautiful as poetry, . . . His look is ravish
ing, His words persuasive, His kindness compelling.
No stain, no imperfection, disfigures Him. Virtues
and gifts in their supreme manifestation adorn Him.
He sees on high the angels prostrate before Him, and
on earth an obedient creation. He foresees that future
generations will kiss the marks of His footsteps, and
that in His honour countless beautiful devotions will
spring forth.

We will recall all the wondrous attributes that
theology discovers in Him : His transformed Soul that
exhausts our ideas of grace; His knowledge that
extends to all created things ; but above all His abso
lutely infinite dignity, Body and Soul subsisting in
the unity of a single person, the Person of the Word :
drawn into Its orbit and receiving the same homage
of adoration — what transplendent glory !

And in the midst of all this, Jesus is humble ! Is it
the effect of a miraculous illusion ? Not at all. Jesus,

128 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

fully conscious of His greatness, realises to a nicety
the smallness of His human nature.

What does He see then ? He sees that this Divine
dignity which He enjoys is only a splendid garment,
and that this garment is purely a gift clothing simple
nothingness. This soul, thus vested, did not exist
yesterday, and at any moment might return again to
the void if it were not each moment sustained by the
Almighty, for the created being, even of a Man-God,
is frail and carries within itself the seeds of dissolution.

We may suppose this adorable Soul saying, long
before S. Catherine of Siena : " I am she who is not."
Coming from such a quarter, these words almost appal
us, and they conjure up before our eyes the imper
ceptible image of nothingness.

III. Humility preserved in Jesus by the Beatific
Vision. — We know that we are nothing, and yet we
are not humble ! Why ? Because we do not live in
the unceasing realisation of all that our nothingness
means.

Pride begins in forgetfulness and breeds illusion; it
is never true.

If a saint from heaven came again among us while
still enjoying the Beatific Vision, he might by a
miracle merit and suffer, but he could never be proud.
The sight of God and at the same time of his own
nothingness would make pride an impossibility.

Let us consider our Divine Saviour on earth thus
enjoying the Beatific Vision, and imbibing from it His
profound humility.

What a spectacle this is — the Word face-to-face with
the nature He has associated Himself with ! The
soul of Jesus plunges her astonished and enchanted

JESUS HUMBLE 129

gaze into the depths of this Divine ocean, depths that
are inaccessible even to her. At all points her gaze is
arrested and she is conscious of an infinite Beyond.
Throughout the centuries of eternity never will this
soul, united to the Word, fully understand the Word.

Though the hosannahs of the crowd surround Him
like a brilliant cloud, He does not raise His head.
Though His face is spat upon, yet His Heart does not
rebel. His thought soars high above these things.

In default of the Beatific Vision, let us endeavour to
call up this vision of faith : God infinite and for ever
infinite; ourselves, before Him, always and in every
thing a kind of nothing.

Do we not find this vision in the great souls of the
Saints ? and do we not meet with it ourselves in
certain simple, ignorant souls ? How is it that we do
not attain to it ? for our light is greater than theirs.
We know our nothingness; but they see it, feel it,
realise it.

Let us make ourselves familiar with this view, that
it may penetrate our whole moral being. Let us recall
it when we place ourselves in the presence of God,
and especially when we are at our prayers.

What a sweet manner of preparing ourselves for
the Beatific Vision of eternity ! Whether it be on
earth, or in heaven, whoso sees God becomes humble.

RESOLUTION. — To see God in all our successes, and
to see Him so clearly that we forget ourselves.

130 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

INSTRUCTIONS ON THE THREE
SUCCEEDING MEDITATIONS

The humility we considered yesterday is that which
is proper for all created beings. It was the disposition
of Adam in the terrestrial paradise, and it will be that
of our blessed state in heaven ; it is the sentiment of the
Nothing in the presence of the Infinite.

The humility of abjection belongs to what is ugly
and low, it does not befit a being coming from the
hands of God. It is made, alas ! entirely by the hands
of men ; it is the work of sin alone.

Let us carefully note this : that all evil, how small
soever it may be, is a deformity, and descends lower
than simple nothingness. This is clear to the reflective
mind, but it is in a very different guise that it is pre
sented to our ideas and tastes.

We certainly do not understand abject humility,
nor have we any deep and real conviction of our vile-
ness. Neither do we feel a disposition to put ourselves
very low.

Alas ! the most guilty souls are the most refractory
to such sentiments, and on the other hand we see
innocence doubting and despising itself, so true it is
that pure eyes alone see clearly. " The pure in heart
shall see God," says the Gospel, and they will also see,
by contrast, the hideousness of what is opposed to
Him— evil.

To see the hideousness of evil in himself, and to
judge himself according to this view, especially consti
tutes the humility of fallen man; but this view is so

JESUS HUMBLE 131

much opposed to common opinion that it passes away
as soon as we leave our meditations. It is as a dream
of the night, of which we retain but a vague and
indistinct remembrance. It is a form of words that
we repeat without really believing it. Belief, dream,
remembrance, all have vanished when temptation
comes, and under the stress of real humiliation we find
in ourselves only the sentiments of outraged human
nature.

What is to be done, O my God, to overcome these
persistent illusions ? How can I raise myself above
these natural sentiments ? I seemed to feel the force
of the preceding meditations, yet I not only lack the
courage to be Christianly humble, but even the simple
conviction of its necessity.

In this again Jesus offers Himself to be our Light.
He makes Himself the Man of Humiliations, even
more, perhaps, than the Man of Sorrows.

He shows Himself so degraded, so vilified, that we
gaze in amazement. Before such a spectacle our
softened hearts condole with Him, and our trembling
hands seek to tear from His head the odious crown of
shame. But He Himself exclaims : " Do not do that !
These humiliations ... I deserve them!"

Deign, O Master, to explain this mystery to me.

1 32 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

FOURTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE XVIII

JESUS CHRIST'S HUMILITY OF ABJECTION

First point : Exterior humiliations.
Second point : Interior humiliations.
Third point : Spiritual humiliations.

Evening Preparation. — This meditation is to be a
kind of picture -of the humiliations of Jesus in His
Passion. We will do our best to understand them, and
so to enter into them that they will really impress us.
As we peruse them we may feel sure that in spite of all
our efforts we shall never do more than discern the
outer confines of the abyss. The Passion comprehends
depths of abasement such as the human mind cannot
fathom; it sees what is obvious and is appalled by
what it sees, but after a little meditation it begins to
realise that it has seen nothing. How would it be if
we had the soul of a S. Francis of Assisi, of a S.
Catherine of Siena, of a S. Theresa, of a S. John of the
Cross ? We should find a Jesus humiliated in ways
that we never even surmised. With them we should
then be ready to trample underfoot all earthly pride,
and to tear from our heart the last sensitive fibre of
vain esteem.

O Jesus, I have not their sight, nor such a soul as
theirs, to see and feel. Thy Holy Spirit alone can
bestow them. Beseech Him, my Jesus, to dissipate my
false ideas and to do His work in revealing Thee; I
desire so deeply to know Thee ! Thou needs must be
so beautiful : so beautiful in Thy humiliations, for I

JESUS HUMBLE 133

realise that there is in Thee a moral beauty so exalted
that I cannot grasp it, so enchanting that it casts over
humiliation itself a lustre that makes it to be desired !
This meditation does not exactly demand a return
upon ourselves ; its aim is rather to set before us, before
our mind and heart, a striking picture of Jesus
humiliated. May it create sincerity in our reflections,
and express itself in the fervency of our love. May
our soul be filled with Jesus, and we shall have then
done more towards developing our personal humility
than if we had anxiously surveyed our own defects;
we shall then love humility with the love that we have
for Jesus.

MEDITATION

FIRST PRELUDE. — Composition of place. Make a
rapid survey of the scenes of the Passion : Gethsemane,
that witnessed the Agony, the treason of Judas, and
the flight of the Apostles; the houses of Anna and
Caiaphas; Pilate's Pretorium; Herod's palace, where
injustice and hatred flung themselves in fury upon
Jesus ; the hall of the flagellation ; the way to Calvary ;
the death on the Cross between two thieves, full in the
public eye. A raging torrent seems to bear away its
victim into an ocean of humiliations.

SECOND PRELUDE. — To ask the grace of meek and
sincere resignation in humiliations.

I. Exterior humiliations. — Let us present ourselves
before Him Who was " the scorn of men and the out
cast of the people." We see Him as a leper, cursed of
God, degraded even to the dust.

Let us glance rapidly through all the various kinds
of humiliations that would most distress and revolt us.

Jesus was humiliated :

134 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

1. In His dignity as a free man. — His enemies throw
themselves brutally upon Him, bind Him, and drag
Him to prison. We, so jealous of our independence if
it is even threatened !

2. In the modest dignity of His Body. — Stripped
of His garments, scourged, nailed naked to the Cross
in the sight of the people ! An honourable man would
prefer a thousand deaths to this shame !

3. In His personal dignity. — Insulted, spat
upon, struck ! How do men act under such
outrages ?

4. In the dignity of His Mind. — He was looked
upon as a fool; He was given a fool's dress; He was
forced to pass slowly between two rows of gaping
people. And we, how troubled we are if any of our
qualities are called in question, or any of our opinions
ridiculed !

5. In His prophetic dignity. — His eyes were ban
daged, and He was struck on the back and head.
" Prophesy ! who struck Thee ?"

6. In His royal dignity. — He is clothed again in
an old fragment of purple, a reed is placed in His
Hand, a Crown of Thorns on His Brow. The soldiers
make mock genuflections before Him, laughing rudely
while they strike Him with His sham sceptre.

7. In His dignity as God. — His enemies tear from
Him everything that is in their power. "He is an
impostor," they cry, "for He made Himself the
Son of God." On this account the sentence of death
is passed upon Him by recognised authority. At
Calvary, the Pharisees sneeringly cry, "If Thou be
the Son of God, come down from the Cross." Ah !
when we are wrongly condemned, when we are scoffed

JESUS HUMBLE 135

at, how we long for revenge ! And if our anger is
useless, how our impotent rage consumes us !

8. In His doctrine. — He has come to destroy the
law ! He deceives the people ! He blasphemes ! He
is the enemy of God !

9. In His reputation. — He is condemned by all the
tribunals, Jewish, Herodian, and Roman. He is
delivered up to every possible physical torment. Like
the greatest criminal, He is crucified publicly in full
daylight, between two thieves, and at a time of the
year when Jews and strangers crowd into Jerusalem
from all parts.

10. In His disciples. — Betrayed by one, denied by
their chief, and forsaken by all, Jesus sees even the
small section of the community that had hitherto been
His adherents lost to Him.

What is left to this humiliated One ?

11. Interior humiliations. — Let us go farther. Upon
the ruins of exterior honour pride can still stand erect
and prolong resistance. Routed elsewhere, it will take
refuge in its sense of personal worth, as in a citadel as
yet unassailed. It is by his moral force that man is
greatest. Under the brute strength that oppresses
him, he remains unconquered.

Too often, alas ! this greatness of soul is unstable
because it is made up of pride.

Jesus is set before us in the shame of His apparent
weakness. Even before His Passion He appears to be
vanquished. Feelings of fear take hold of Him —
Coepit pavere, . . . and He breathes them forth as if
He cannot suppress them — Tristis est anima mea
usque ad mortem! . . .

He is so overcome that a sweat of blood bursts from

136 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

His trembling limbs. ... He seems so little like
Himself that He repulses the long-desired chalice. He
is so cast down that He seeks help from His Apostles
and accepts it from an angel !

O beautiful and profound humility — in aspect so
human, and in intention so compassionate !

III. Spiritual humiliations. — There is another kind
of pride, more rare but not less pernicious, and this is
spiritual pride. Formidable in the midst of approba
tion, it is no less so in ignominy.

Despised, calumniated, persecuted, we still find, as
did Jesus on Calvary, a few sympathetic friends. If
our attitude is dignified, if our words bespeak lofty
sentiments, and if we manifest a soul superior to mis
fortune, sympathy becomes admiration. And should
God, by some sign of special protection, grant us the
aureole of martyrs, admiration is transformed into
enthusiasm !

Ah ! what dangers beset the soul that is not very
humble ! What a pedestal for its pride !

Jesus chooses unmitigated humiliation. He wills it
in all its spiritual nakedness. On the Cross no dis
course, but a kind of stupor, broken by occasional
words that are like sobs ! No radiance of the soul ;
everything in Him is sombre as the night that enfolds
Calvary ! His Father is pitiless ; Jesus cries out that
He has forsaken Him !

Already abandoned by men, He is now abandoned
by God. Nothing, nothing on earth or in heaven, but
humiliation !

His abasement is consummated and He dies in it.
Oh ! this Crucifix that rears itself everywhere before
our eyes, with its bent Head, its livid Face, its dis-

JESUS HUMBLE 137

tressing lassitude, is the image of the humiliated Man.
It is indeed the very image of humility, even more than
that of sorrow. When sorrow ceases, that poor Body
.suspended to the gibbet remains in humiliation.
Oh ! what an example for us, and what a help !

RESOLUTION. — To kneel to-day three times before a
crucifix, asking Jesus to make me understand this
humility.

FIFTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE XIX

THE NEED FOR ABJECT HUMILITY

First point : Reasons for it.
Second point : Our example.
Third point : Our law.

Evening Preparation. — O Jesus, yesterday I sur
veyed with emotion all the infamies Thou Hast
suffered, all the distress Thou hast endured; I saw
Thee forsaken by all, despoiled of everything, Thine
incredible abasement only too evident. There is no
doubt that Thou didst will to be the Man of Humilia
tions. I see it and feel it. But why hast Thou willed
it ? This I have not yet grasped.

Was it only to make Thyself a great example ? No,
for then, though I see humiliation, I do not see the
humility that can sincerely say: "This is justice!"
Yet in coming into the world Thou didst utter these
words ; Thou didst repeat them in Thine abasements,
for Thy lowered eyes speak them, Thy troubled brow,
Thy trembling limbs ; Thy whole attitude attests the
guilty one !

138 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

O Jesus, everything in Thee is necessarily sincere,
even to the expression of a look, and the simple move
ment of a muscle. A voice comes forth from all these
lamentable things repeating: "It is justice. I
deserve it."

O Jesus, wilt Thou not to-day make me understand
it ?— and understand so truly that I shall never again
forget.

If humility is justice for Thee, what is it, then,
for me ?

This is not a matter of mere sentiment, but of strict
reasoning. It is a starting-point upon which depends
the whole course of life; abject humility, once recog
nised as necessary, means a revolution in the whole of
my moral nature.

MEDITATION

FIRST PRELUDE.— Let us set against the picture of
accumulated humiliation of yesterday's meditation the
moral hideousness of sin. This latter surpasses the
former in horror. The cause contains the effect; sin
results in these humiliations that are only its just
penalty.

To see sin as synonymous with the ignominy of the
spitting, the blows, the bleeding nakedness, the
infamous death.

SECOND PRELUDE. — To ask the grace to accept
humiliation on principle, as a matter of justice and
for the love of Jesus.

I. The reason for it. — Let us compare carefully two
texts of Scripture.

This is the first : Exinanivit semetipsum formam
servi accipiens — " He took upon Himself the form of

JESUS HUMBLE 139

This is Jesus as we saw Him before His
Passion. He made Himself nothing in making Him
self man. Had this design been realised in the
terrestrial Paradise, among the splendours of original
nature, He would still have found Himself face to face
with the All and the nothing, the Being Supreme in
Himself and the created being; and even then His
Incarnation would have been an annihilation, and
His humility the sense of His nothingness.

But a second text completes the idea of this virtue
by showing it such as was fitting to fallen man.
Humiliavit semetipsum usque ad mortem, mortem
autem cruets. Humiliavit — He is like a despised
object thrown upon the ground. Usque ad mortem —
like a guilty man dragged forth to die. Mortem
autem crucis — an ignominious^ death, the death of
capital punishment, the kind of death that exposes the
executed criminal, with his distorted features, his
nakedness and his torments, to the gaze of the
crowd.

This is no longer the God Incarnate, it is God the
Redeemer. It is not the humility of annihilation, it is
the humility of abjection. It is no longer neglect, but
spite. The origin of this growing virtue is no longer
nothingness, but evil.

II. The Example. — Let us contemplate Jesus
covered with every infamy. He bears the sins of the
whole world. Qui tollit pec cat a mundi. He is
responsible for it, He is charged with it — Qui pec cat a
nostra ipse tulit. Sin is His own thing, He is the
personification of it — Eum pro nobis peccatum fecit.
He is not only charged and clothed with it, He is
penetrated and devoured by it; it is a leprosy that

140 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

consumes Him. He is an object of horror to God, of
disgust to His people — Ut percussum a Deo et
humiliatum.

Listen to the exclamation of Jesus : Vermis sum et
non homo. Sound the depth of humiliation in these
words — " I am no longer a man, but a worm of the
earth " — a worm that is trodden under foot and that
hides itself in the depths of the earth. To be
humiliated is to be humbled to the ground, but Jesus
goes farther. What a picture !

Let us try to understand the secret thoughts of the
Saviour.

Every virtue shows itself in its love for its proper
object, and consists in a practical inclination tending
towards it. Here the object is abasement. The first
degree is acceptance, then comes desire, the quest, and
finally satisfaction.

It will be extremely profitable to recall to our
memory either the words or the circumstances that
display these sentiments in our Lord.

Let us in silence contemplate them reigning in His
Heart.

III. The Law. — Is it really true that this humilia
tion of Jesus is to be the model for us ? Is it really
true that in order to be Christians our humility must
incline us to judge ourselves worthy of contempt ?

Or are we rather to look upon it only as an admir
able excess, an unparalleled stimulus calculated at
least to constrain us to ordinary humility ?

Doubtless such an example is stimulating, but it is
something more, something entirely different : it is a
law, or rather the revelation of a law and its authentic
promulgation.

JESUS HUMBLE 141

It is not a question of being satisfied with words
and of holding vague sentiments. Let us dig to the
roots of this truth.

Under what title did Jesus submit Himself to such
abject humiliation ? In His capacity as the Man-God ?
No, but in His capacity as Redeemer, and in that
capacity alone.

As our Redeemer, He is our Representative and
our Surety. Now the attitude adopted by my repre
sentative is exactly what is proper to me, what is
incumbent upon me, and is my clear duty.

The price paid by my surety is the extent of my
debt. The abject humility of Jesus does not create an
obligation, it only exhibits it.

The duty of such humility existed for us sinners,
but we did not know it, and without Jesus we should
never have known it. He comes, He takes our faults,
He knows the humiliation they deserve; and He
submits to this humiliation, He wills it, and even
loves it.

And when He says to us : "I am humble of heart,"
it is as if He said : " Be humble, for it is the law, and
I have submitted to it for thee. But it is before every
thing else, thy law ; then submit to it also."

O Jesus, what a lesson ! and I have never really
understood it.

Yet everything pointed to it, well-known phrases,
my own observations, the very nature of things ; I must
have known it, and yet this truth seems to be some
thing quite new. It is because at last I understand it.
Oh ! I thank Thee for having revealed it to me. Thou
hast seen my goodwill, my desires, and above all my
needs, and in Thy mercy Thou hast said : " Let My

142 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

own abject humility open the eyes of this poor soul at
last!"

RESOLUTION. — If humiliation is my law, why am I
irritated by it ? I will surfer with meekness every
thing that is painful to my pride.

SIXTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE XX

HUMILITY OF ABJECTION— ITS MYSTERIOUS
NATURE

First point : It is a kind of mystery.

Second point : This mystery is explained by the mystery
of sin.

Third point : Original sin sufficiently explains it.

Evening Preparation. — To-morrow's meditation
explains and completes the two preceding ones — or
rather, it establishes their conclusions by irrefutable
proofs. These proofs, we may remark, result primarily
from our faith, and this explains the sort of anxiety
that fastens upon our reason, for the reason is afraid
of profundities, even of logic, where it cannot follow.
In the darkness, even though it is conscious of truth,
it is not reassured, for it would fain see it clearly, and
in its own light.

Our first duty, then, is not to mistrust our reason,
but its habits. Reason looks upon everything as
strange with which it is not familiar ; it treats all that
is beyond it as imaginary, and disdainfully calls
profound doctrine mysticism. What is to be done in
this case ? We appeal from bad reason to logical and

JESUS HUMBLE 143

just reason. Are the dogmas of faith true ? Does
abject humility result from these dogmas ? These
principles once demonstrated, their conclusion must be
admitted, though such humility may remain a
mystery, like other mysteries of the faith.

We believe and affirm, and still we are undecided,
so obstinate is nature, so true it is that our will no
more than our reason is able to suffice unto itself.

From this disposition proceeds a second duty, that
of imploring grace, that Divine help, which will
enable us to make the difficult passage from recognised
proof to free and entire adhesion.

O my God, establish me at last in the truth, create
in me an unshakable conviction ! Such a conviction
is rarer than we think, and yet even conviction is not
virtue, and it is the virtue itself that Thou dost look
for in me.

The virtue is a facility that offers to humiliations a
gentle welcome ! it is the holy habit that peacefully
bears the burden, since Thy Will imposes it. In some
souls it becomes a love that opens its arms to them,
and that sometimes even invites them.

O my God, what need I have of Thy powerful
grace ! O Jesus, Thy past example does not suffice
me; come into me, come Thyself and live it again
in me !

MEDITATION

FIRST PRELUDE. — To remember that Jesus regarded
His Passion and death as lesser evils than the evil of
original sin. With Him let us plunge our eyes into
the mystery of this sin as into an abyss — an abyss so
dark that though the eyes tire with gazing, they dis
tinguish nothing; and so deep that the ear does not

144 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

catch the sound of the fall of a stone thrown into it.
Jesus possesses what is lacking to us : let us see with
His eyes and judge according to His penetrating
mind.

SECOND PRELUDE.— Ask the grace to abandon
myself to Jesus, that I may follow Him with confidence
and love along the way of humility.

I. There is something mysterious in humility of
abjection. — It is mysterious to the rationalist, who
thinks it absurd ; it is so even to us, who, alas ! regard
it, at least practically, as a pious excess.

In order to better our ideas, it will be as well not to
isolate the Divine Master from the more enlightened
among His servants. It is always He, because His
mind was in them, but in them He seems nearer to us
and more like us.

Let us recall the epithets that the Saints heaped
upon themselves : " An abyss of malice," " An
abortion," " The scum of humanity," etc.

They considered themselves unworthy to speak,
unworthy even to live. Such expressions were familiar
to them, and are to be found in the mouths of them
all. They are like echoes from Calvary, sounding
across more than nineteen centuries; echoes of the
same kind of humility, the only humility that is ever
canonised.

Their humility was logical and passed from words
into actions. Though despised and persecuted, they
were meek ; though betrayed and struck, they bore all
with a joyous smile; when they were called wicked,
they declared they were worse; when forsaken, they
were contented,. They looked upon themselves as
useless, and the good they did they attributed to God,

JESUS HUMBLE 145

Who, they said, accomplished His work less with their
aid than in spite of them.

This is what they say, this is what they feel, and —
we must try to realise it — this is what they truly think.

Let us notice more especially those who have been
transformed by humiliations ; they aspire to contempt
as the ambitious aspire to glory; and when God asks
them what prize they will choose as the recompense of
their travail they answer : " To suffer and be con
temned for Thy sake ! "

We are confounded before them, for they are men
like ourselves, often less guilty and always more
deserving.

II. This humility is explained by the mystery of
sin. — Man would understand the humility of abjection
if he were capable of sounding to its depths the abyss
of sin. Jesus Christ explored its sombre depths by the
double light of His infused knowledge and of the
Beatific Vision.

The holiness of the Infinite Being, His majesty, His
goodness, His supreme beauty, all the splendour of
the Divine attributes inundating His Soul with their
brilliant light, showed Him the degree of love, respect,
and praise that are due to God.

Then the scene suddenly changes. Sin attacks this
Beauty and Splendour, aiming its blows at the Divine
Honour as if it would destroy It. At this sight He
Who bore the sins of the world is overwhelmed with
horror and confusion. Let us contemplate Him in His
Agony, weighed down with anguish. Listen to His
strangely depressed words : Transeat a me — " Let
this chalice pass from Me." See the sweat of blood
that bears witness to the conflict.

10

146 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Yet, without hesitation we may say that the holy
Humanity of the Saviour Itself did not know all the
disorder, all the outrage contained in sin; only His
Divine Nature had a full realisation of it.

I am ashamed, O adorable Father, to find that 1
have measured sin by its exterior appearance, or by
the knowledge of it that reason gives ! Yet even to
the mind of Jesus, sin was, in some sense, a mystery.
Ah ! I begin to see that I know nothing of humility,
and that I shall never know everything !

The mystery is to be found in sin alone, and not in
humility, which is only the logical outcome of it. It
is, in fact, the state that is proper to the sinner, the
just sentence that he ought to pronounce against him
self. But how can he pronounce it if he is incapable of
estimating the gravity of his fault? He has one
resource, and that is to see with eyes more penetrating
than his own, to judge, not according to the opinion of
men, but by the standards of God. The Saints did
this, and this is why the celestial folly of their self-
abasement is the highest wisdom. "Learn of Me,"
once again the Saviour says to us. Why should I
seek anywhere else ? Humility is a virtue almost
wholly supernatural, high as heaven, deep as hell.

How weak and circumscribed reason appears in the
presence of this revelation !

III. Original sin imposes such a humility. — To clear
away the last traces of uncertainty, let us ask the
grace to understand how the Saints, who had not
committed any serious sin, could yet be abjectly
humble. Also, they are not responsible, as Jesus was,
for the sins of others.

This is true, but they were tainted with original sin,

JESUS HUMBLE 147

and their participation in the fall justifies, even in
them, abject humility. We must once more frankly
acknowledge it, this is still a mystery that is explained
by another mystery.

But the reality of original sin is a denned dogma
that throws the light of faith on the subject that we
are considering.

Original sin affects the whole of humanity. It was
chiefly on its account that Jesus was Incarnate, that
He died, and that He made Himself so humble.

Now every man, even the most just, bears this
shameful stain, the object of God's aversion. It is also
true that he bears its humiliating effects, even unto
death.

Do not our errors, our illusions, our rebellious
thoughts, and the evil propensities that trouble the
blood and the brain, work like leaven towards all kinds
of sin ? We are in constant danger. There is not a
single sin that man has committed that I may not
become capable of committing.

And if such a misfortune has not happened to me,
may it not be because the supreme temptation, with all
its insidious preparations, has not yet presented itself ?
Countless examples of unexpected failure prompt this
fear and th;s humility. Misericordia Domini quia non
sumus consumpti — "Lord, it is by Thy mercy that I
am not consumed."

O Jesus, I resist no longer, I believe in Thy humility
and in that of the Saints. I blush to think of mine,
with its reserves that I now yield up to Thee.

Do I need to understand when Thou dost teach ? I
do not even need to hear; I have only to contemplate
Thee. In Thy exterior humility I have a living

148 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

picture that instructs me, and from afar I endeavour
to surmise Thine astonishing- interior humility.

But as humility is a practical virtue that mingles
itself with every sentiment and action, I wish to
practise it with great generosity, and without measur
ing the obligation that binds me.

Perhaps I may thus arrive at a better understanding
of the secret of the Saints.

RESOLUTION. — Since the knowledge of sin and that
of humility go together, I will make my confessions
serve to this double end : a sincere contrition, and
humiliating accusations. Have I not been rather care
less in this matter ?*

0 Is not abject humility of a nature to throw a man into
a sort of terror and trouble that may paralyse him, and
diminish in him the sense of personal dignity, that lofty
guide of conscience and powerful spring of action?

The answer is simple. Look at the Saints, look at the
most humble among them ; note their peace, their courage,
their good works. Their peace is unshakable, it rests not
upon themselves but upon God. Beloved by Him, what
should they fear? All inquietude, all sadness, are drowned
in His mercy.

Their personal dignity is based not upon natural qualities,
which elevate little; but upon gifts of grace, that surpass all
created gifts. They are conscious of being the children of
God, invested with the highest nobility; and in action they
know themselves to be the instruments of .the Divine Will.

Compare this consciousness and these lines with those of
the ambitious. If there is not enough humility in the piety
of to-day, it is because unwittingly it is influenced by the
rationalism that is spreading everywhere.

Now rationalism, we must repeat, is not reason, for well-
informed reason recognises the duty of admitting super
natural truths.

It is narrow-mindedness that refuses to acknowledge any
thing outside its own sphere. Many false ideas and much
evil arise from this error.

But it may be said, under the burden of such a humility

JESUS HUMBLE 149

INSTRUCTIONS ON THE NEXT
MEDITATION

I

We are coming to a consideration of that delicate
point in humility, the putting of ourselves below
others. Several questions arise here. Does this virtue
demand this of us ? Is it of precept or of counsel ?
Ought we to carry it to the point of really persuading
ourselves that we are the least among men ?

Let us begin by recalling several indisputable truths.

First truth. — At the Last Supper, our Lord placed
Himself at the feet of every one of the Apostles, even
at the feet of Judas; and later He declared that this
abasement should be our law. S. Paul recalls this
obligation in these words : " Treat others as your
superiors." Nothing is clearer from a practical point
of view. All the Saints without exception have
followed this rule of conduct, and the Church has
never canonised a lesser humility.

Thus we see that what we considered as excesses
are made legitimate and glorified.

Second truth. — Humility is the sense of our guilty

it would be impossible to enjoy, to love, to amuse oneself- —
in short, to live one's life?

Not at all, for what effect has the thought of death, for
example, upon us — of death that will inevitably come one
day to pluck us from this world, and a death that may
suddenly descend upon us at any moment? If we retain it
interiorly, as a useful warning, it nevertheless allows us to
be calm and busy. Thus it is with the sentiment of humility.
(See, farther on, " Of prudence in humility.")

150 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

resistance to grace, of our faults, and of our defects.
Now this sentiment, when it is real, takes complete
possession of the soul, veiling from the eyes the faults
and defects of others, and making her sincerely seek
the lowest place as that most suitable to her unworthi-
ness. This tendency to self-depreciation has always
been regarded as essential to the perfection of this
virtue.

Third truth. — An indirect but very strong reason
for this law of humility is found in its connection with
the law of Christian charity, of which it is the surest
safeguard. This throws a wonderful light on the
subject, for it appears that charity can only grow in
the space made for it by humility.

II

From these truths it results : (i) That abasement
before others really does enter into the exigencies of
humility in this sense, that we should despise no one,
and should prefer ourselves to no one, in an absolute
sense. (2) That beyond this, self-abasement is of
counsel only, and has no limits assigned to it except
those dictated by prudence.

Ill

But is this counsel of abasement at the feet of all
men to be a practical rule ? Would it be in accordance
with good judgment? In other words, in placing
myself at the feet of all, must I really believe that it is
my rightful place ? Certainly, for the Divine Master,
the implacable enemy of all hypocrisy, would not ask

JESUS HUMBLE 151

us to do anything that would be a contradiction of
our inmost feelings.

How can we form such a conviction ? and how can
it be sincere ? This is what we are going to study in
to-morrow's meditation.

We may clear the ground by observing that, from
now, we must base our estimate of self upon the whole
life, and especially upon the manner of its close, for it
is this that ranks us.

Now an impenetrable veil conceals the future — our
own and that of the very man whom we despise.

This impossibility of preferring ourselves before
anyone allows us sincerely to place ourselves beneath
all. It is a matter of simple prudence, indeed, but we
shall see that humility counsels it.

Coming to closer grips with the question, must we
ask if perfect humility exacts that we should, in a
numerical sense, consider ourselves the lowest among
others ? We frankly answer : No. To be the lowest,
precisely the lowest, of the multitude of persons who
nil the earth, is speculatively improbable, and if each
must think himself so, all must be wrong but one ! But
this detracts nothing, as we shall soon see, from our
previous conclusions.

Practical inclination remains, and it is in this that
humility consists.

152 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

SEVENTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE XXI

THE NEW COMMANDMENT: TO PLACE OUR-
SELVES AT THE FEET OF ALL

First point : It is humility that Jesus means to teach us
here.

Second point : This humility is of the supernatural order.
Third point : Reasons that confirm it.

Evening Preparation. — The nature of this medita
tion, well understood, is such as profoundly to modify
our ideas. Though apparently obscure, the reasons
for a self-abasing humility are, au fond, extremely
cogent. Its demands are the demands of a wise God
Who knows human nature through and through.
Were men dominated by it, an immense peace would
possess them, and no duty would be found too hard.

I will begin by allowing to my mind complete
freedom to examine the subject. What is conventional
and superficial results in nothing solid either in con
viction or virtue.

On the other hand, I must beware of prejudice that
emanates either from nature, refractory to these ideas,
or from human opinion, that is blind in such matters.

I must remember that supernatural truths, once
ascertained, become, like intellectual truths, principles,
whose consequences must be admitted.

But above all I will pray, I will invoke the heavenly
light, and when I am fully convinced once more I will
pray that the vital sap of a like humility, permeating

JESUS HUMBLE 153

all my sentiments, may give to my charity towards
my neighbour the kindliness and charm that are its
fruits.

O Mary so humble ! O Jesus, utterly humble !
Why should I fear to abase myself as low as you ?

Sacred waters of humility that flow only into lowly
valleys, transform into an oasis the arid sands of my
barren pride !

MEDITATION

" And when supper was done (the devil now having
put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon,
to betray Him), Jesus riseth from supper and layeth
aside His garments ; and having taken a towel, girded
Himself. After that, He putteth water into a basin,
and began to wash the feet of the disciples, and to
wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded.
He cometh, therefore, to Simon Peter. And Peter
saith to Him : Lord, dost Thou wash my feet ? Jesus
answered and said to him : What I do thou knowest
not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. . . .

" Then after He had washed their feet, and taken
His garments, being set down again, He said to them :
Know you what I have done to you ? You call Me
Master and Lord ; and you say well, for so I am. If,
then, I, being your Lord and Master, have washed
your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.
^ For I have given you an example, that as I have done
to you, so you do also. Amen, Amen, I say to you :
the servant is not greater than his Lord, neither is the
Apostle greater than He that sent him.

" If you know these things, you shall be blessed if
you do them."

154 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

FIRST PRELUDE. — To represent to ourselves the
large upper room furnished. Outside, the last rays of
daylight rest upon the long draperies of the window.
Inside, the torches are gleaming. In the midst stands
the table, surrounded by rich divans and prepared
for the Pasch. Outside, Jerusalem lies silent.

SECOND PRELUDE.— To ask for a holy self-abase
ment before everyone.

I. TV is humility that Jestts means to teach us here. —
Everything proves it, the action itself and also the
words of the Master.

The meaning of the action. — In every age, men
and especially Orientals, have used material repre
sentations to impress upon the mind their most im
portant lessons. Now, what action can better express
humility than that of washing the feet ? The feet !
Those lowly members that tread the earth and are
soiled by it ! But here it is not any kind of humility,
but humility with regard to men.

Humility without parade : Jesus does not ask to be
helped. Resolute humility : He does violence to
S. Peter. Extreme humility : He kneels at the feet of
the lowest of men, Judas. Let us study all these
significant details.

The intention of the Master. — By this action
Jesus intends to give a new form to the relations of
Christians with one another, otherwise the solemnity
of the lesson would exceed the importance of its object.
He calls the attention of the Apostles to it : " You
have seen what I have just done." He explains His
motive : " I have done it to give you an example." He
takes pains to point out the obligation arising from
this : " If I, your Lord and Master, etc." He dwells

JESUS HUMBLE 155

on the importance of this precept by calling " blessed
those who will understand and will do it."

This is no incidental or equivocal lesson; it is a
lesson prepared, explained, and attested ; it is complete
and indisputable.

We must not, however, for a moment imagine that
the lesson was to be specifically applied to the actual
washing of feet. This would be to convict the infallible
guardian of sacred tradition, the Church, of unfaithful^
ness. The usage, often difficult of practice, has disap
peared. It was but a symbol of which humility was
the reality, and its immortal, flexible spirit adapting
itself to changing customs has not ceased to animate
Christian society.

II. This humility is of the supernatural order. —
What is this humility, that even the chief of the
Apostles "cannot understand now, but will under
stand later " ? It is not mere ordinary humility, it is
supernatural humility, that the Holy Spirit alone can
impart.

Ordinary rational humility is humility before God,
than which nothing is more natural. It is also
modesty, the curb to our pretensions that human
wisdom prescribes. But abasement before our fellows,
even before the evil, in fact, before everyone — this
attitude of the greatest at the feet of the least, that
was the attitude of Jesus — this God alone can teach
and impose upon man.

But why should I put myself beneath everyone?
and how can I sincerely do so, since everyone should
do the same in his turn ? Is not this an exaggeration,
contrary to good sense, a pious fiction that cannot be
put into actual practice ?

156 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

No, it is not an exaggerated theory, it is the
universal teaching of the masters of the spiritual life,
commencing with S. Paul. " Let each esteem others,"
he says, " better than themselves."

It is not a mere fiction, it is an essentially Christian
inclination. All the Saints have considered themselves
the least among men; and if there is one thing that
surprises us more than their superlative virtue, it is
their profound conviction of their own worthlessness.

The secret of this lesson is to be found in a con
sideration of our own condition. We must bring to
this matter an unbiassed mind, for we are frequently
disconcerted by truths that run counter to current
opinion.

III. Reason for this humility. — In all of us there is
both good and evil. The good comes from God, and
we have no right to be proud of it as if it were our
own. The evil, on the contrary, comes from ourselves,
and we deserve all the shame of it. Such is our
position in the eyes of Divine justice.

Now, in the matter of good and evil, man finds
himself in a very different position, according as it is
a question of the good and evil that is in himself and
the good and evil that he sees in his neighbour.

In his own case he is bound to judge, for he knows
himself and his conscience, and he feels himself
responsible. He sees the evil that is in him, and he
can and ought to admit it.

But when it is a question of his neighbour, he is no
longer judge, for he is not competent to be so. Guilt
depends on the intention, and of this he is ignorant ;
ingratitude is in proportion to graces received, and of
these he has no knowledge; and the whole sum of

JESUS HUMBLE 157

worth depends on the final result, and this he cannot
estimate.

Of his own state he is certain, of his neighbour's
he can only form conjectures. In his own case it is his
duty to judge ; in his neighbour's, mark the warning :
Qui judicat fratrem detrahit legi — " He who judges
his brother transgresses the law."

If I have no right to judge others, how can I prefer
myself to anyone ?

O Divine Master ! penetrate my soul with this
doctrine, that seems to me so strange; to judge others
has hitherto seemed to me as just as to judge myself.
Men do it every day ; they are in the wrong, and I as
much as they.

O Jesus, have pity on my poor reason, that scarcely
knows how to assent to such humility. Grant to me
the strength of mind to embrace it, and the strength
of will to act accordingly.

In others I must see only the good that comes from
God. In myself I must see good as a Divine work,
and evil as my own.

O wise partiality, that makes life peaceful and its
relationships delightful !

O sublime point of view, that mingles in one the two
eminent Christian virtues, charity and humility !
Humility discovers God in our neighbour, and
charity loves Him there.

This is a new precept, and it is not surprising.
Since God became man all is changed, everything is
made new, and if by His Almighty Will and by a
mysterious bond this God incarnate perpetuates Him
self in each man, is it astonishing He should command
that a supernatural respect be paid to him ?

158 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

RESOLUTION.— If I have no right to judge anyone,
how can I prefer myself to anyone ? To repeat this
to myself on occasion. To show myself to-day more
deferential to everyone.

FOURTH WEEK
DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL

PREPARATION FOR THE FOURTH WEEK

WE are now convinced and resolved we will be humble.

But this impulse needs direction. False ideas,
our own mistakes, and ingrained habit, all tend to
draw us from the true path. Laws misunderstood
and half-digested knowledge may leave us with an
incomplete humility, ineffective and even dangerous.

On the other hand, the glory of true humility
will show up the imperfections of ours, and by its
charm will win our heart. To acquire a taste for good
is already to live in accordance with its standards.
Desire is the springing shoot, the mounting sap, the
effort that tends to growth.

Certain of the following meditations will be con
cerned with various applications of the sentiment of
humility in regard to God, to our neighbour, and to
ourselves. Others will teach the cultivation of this
virtue by exterior practice, by inner sentiment, and by
that great spiritual flight that is known as the love of
contempt.

Lastly, the virtue of prudence must be allowed to
teach these impulses its own wise and careful methods
of procedure.

This fourth week is, then, especially to be given up
to the study of practical humility.

161 ii

162 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

SOME FALSE FORMS OF HUMILITY

These reflections regarding weak, false, and illusive
forms of humility seem less useful for meditation than
for reading and self-examination.

They fix our attention chiefly upon ourselves, while
the aim of meditation is rather to fix it upon God.
Since, however, there may be some who may prefer to
make meditations upon them, the various parts have
been so arranged as to make this possible.

I. — RATIONAL HUMILITY

This kind of humility is to be found in almost every
soul of ordinary virtue. A little observation will soon
show this to be the case. Now, merely rational
humility is not the humility of Jesus, nor of the Saints,
nor of those souls who are advancing in virtue. Not
resting upon faith, it has not the strength to sustain
high virtue; it does not soften the heart, nor shed
abroad the light of the Divine reflection.

O my God, clear from my mind its narrow preju
dices, and reveal the truth to me. I ask it for the sake
of the humility of Jesus, that surpasses human reason
by the whole height of Calvary.

I. In what a rational humility consists. — That we
shall not foolishly esteem ourselves, nor despise
estimable people ; that we shall not undertake what is
beyond our strength or capacity; that we shall not
exalt ourselves above our deserts, and that we shall
be neither arrogant nor vain. This suffices for a
merely rational humility. The humility of the Saints
is offensive to it, it calls it extraordinary ; if it dared
it would call it fanatical.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 163

The teaching of the masters of the spiritual life does
not find grace in its sight. Its private opinion of it
is expressed in such varying phrases as : " We may
take or leave it," or " It is absurd."

Rational humility is not always dogmatic, it is
often merely practical.

In such a case we are not deceived by reason, it is
nature that carries us away.

We are ready nonchalantly to admit every Christian
theory on this virtue without dreaming of applying it
to ourselves. It is, besides, the most natural thing in
the world that we should seek to be seen and to rule.

If a certain need of justifying ourselves arises in our
mind, we satisfy it by the most plausible excuses : to
take the first place is no more than what is due to our
rank; to speak well of ourselves, merely simplicity;
and to accept without affectation all that flatters our
self-love, only a holy liberty. This is no better than
pagan virtue. Nonne ethnici hoc jaciunt? sadly
exclaims the Divine Master.

Such a humility is false in its principles, for, taking
no account of the dogmas of faith, it is a mutilation
of Christian humility. It is inadequate in its moral
import, for it does not attain its end; it is not that
humility that maintains peace and charity, it is not
such as produces self-abnegation and disperses
illusions.

II. Why a merely rational humility is to be jeared. —
Such a seemingly reasonable humility easily deceives
us; we are shocked by no excess; nor yet is there
anything seriously amiss, none of those moral
deformities that betray evil.

Not only our reason but our nature approves it. Of

1 64 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

ourselves we can advance as far as that, and our innate
sense of justice and goodness is satisfied.

Human common sense, in accordance with reason
and nature, confirms us in a state of mind that excludes
doubtful practices. Does not everyone think thus?
A victim of the common error, though I have been in
good faith, I am none the less utterly lacking in true
humility.

III. The inadequacy of this humility. — It stops
short on the threshold of the supernatural, and through
its short-sightedness sees only the human aspect of
humility. Now, in order to judge an object truly, we
must not content ourselves with seeing only a part of
it, however clearly.

The mistake here is not in seeing indistinctly, but in
not seeing the whole, and in drawing conclusions as
if we had seen the whole.

The dogmas relative to original sin and to our need
of grace wonderfully elevate the point of view ; to the
eye of faith the undreamed-of extent of our depend
ence is revealed, and in the light of this discovery the
inadequacy of a merely rational humility is plainly
seen.

Recall the meditations of the second week, and the
extraordinary impression they doubtless made upon
you.

We have said that all dogma, that is true, becomes
a legitimate principle of reasoning, and the con
clusions thus arrived at, however unexpected they may
be, have the fullest right to enter the domain of virtue.

Nothing, then, is more strictly reasonable than
supernatural humility; but reasonable though it may
be, it is far from appearing so to us.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 165

We are terribly like those vulgar people who will
admit nothing that they cannot understand. Speak
to them of disinterestedness, and they will answer you,
with a smile on their lips, that au fond everyone has,
as a motive, some kind of self-interest; that dis
interestedness does not exist, and that if by any
chance we come across it, it is only trickery.

And these people are very sure of themselves. They
are like those rustics who, depending on their own
good sense, refuse disdainfully to avail themselves of
the most authentic scientific remedies.

In the matter of humility, do not let us trust too
much to what it is convenient to call good sense, for
it is only of the earth, earthy.

Earth, of the earth, has no capacity to judge the
things of heaven. It is that human sense that, in the
Pagans, treated as folly the sublime self-annihilation
of Calvary, and which, among Christians themselves,
stirred up those "enemies of the Cross of Christ," of
which S. Paul "could only speak weeping." It is
found again, alas ! in the rationalistic spirit of to-day.

Who can be sure that he is not tainted with it ? Our
natural instincts are full of it, and our minds are
perhaps not wholly free from it. How many souls, of
reputed piety, having lost in a measure the Christian
sense, have despoiled the humility of Jesus of its
supernatural exigencies ! Evacuerunt crucem Christi!

Let us seek, then, to see more clearly and to feel
more keenly. The day is long in dawning, it is hard
to rid ourselves of habit, though it be only a habit of
mind, for the mind, too, needs to become accustomed
to an idea in order to believe what it has only admitted
by force of reasoning.

i66 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Reflections. — If my humility is not the humility of
Jesus, it is too weak to support the supernatural edifice
of virtue, and it is powerless in the eyes of God to
attract His graces. It possesses neither that profound
sweetness that assures peace, nor that special charm
that makes it pleasing in the eyes of men. It is no
more than an incomplete virtue, dry and unfruitful.

Yet we say that we believe we are humble because
we are neither vain, ambitious, arrogant, nor
susceptible. Ah! let us return to the school of
Bethlehem, of Nazareth, and of Calvary; let us lend a
more attentive ear to the Divine Master; and let us
take as our ideal not the modesty of the worldly-wise,
but the humility of the Saints.

II. — A NARROW AND PUSILLANIMOUS HUMILITY

Is not the practice of humility likely to become a
source of preoccupation ? Will it not make me hesitate
to take my part, fearful of giving an order, easily
disturbed when the necessity arises to act with firm
ness ? Will it not put me under tiresome obligations ?
Shall I not be liable to be easily scandalised by others ?

Humility ought certainly not to cramp our ideas,
nor on any account to paralyse our actions and make
us timid.

To refuse to practise a virtue or to do a good work
that circumstances clearly call for, because it may be
an occasion to us of vanity, is the excuse of a narrow
and exclusive soul.

To tremble in the presence of difficulties is not
humility, but weakness.

Our first regard ought to be for the will of God, our
sole rule of action, and we should base our confidence

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 167

on the grace that accompanies it. Are we to defend
our shy virtue even againat God ? or rather, can that
even be called a virtue that exhibits a selfish fear for
its own security and is so narrowing in its influence
upon the heart and so paralysing to zeal ?

Self-complacence is a vice, but to be sad even to
discouragement about oneself is another ; it arrests all
progress. To see evil in everything we do is neither
just nor wise; the good that is in me is not mine but
God's.

To be irritated at our faults is to know neither God
nor self. True humility stirs us to regret, to prayer, to
effort. False humility produces cowardice that has not
even energy to arouse us to regret, much less to prayer
and combat.

It is especially in the exercise of authority that this
narrow spirit makes itself felt in the most deplorable
fashion. We dare not give orders, or orders are given
timidly, and we do not realise that we are depriving
subordinates of a strength that they have a right to
expect. We allow them to criticise and find fault with
out thinking that it is God in the superior that is being
held up to scorn ; all this is very prejudicial to good.

This sort of defect is the very opposite of the pre
ceding. Rational humility limits the virtue too much ;
narrow and pusillanimous humility carries it beyond
the limits of prudence. This is not such a common
fault, and that is easily explained. Rationalistic
humility is the action of reason left to itself, while
narrow and pusillanimous humility betrays, in addi
tion to a natural defect, an excessive preoccupation
with the views of faith.

To discover this eccentricity, and to institute means

1 68 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

of getting rid of it, it is good to analyse the causes that
produce it : the one, narrowness, belongs to the dis
position of the mind ; the other, pusillanimity, depends
on the character. Thanks to this distinction, each will
know where to set to work at reform.

I. Narrow humility. — Like rationalism, narrowness
of mind sees humility only in part, but it sees it in its
exigencies. It supposes pride where it does not exist,
in such and such a principle or act that it believes is
infected by it.

We shall deceive ourselves if we think that this
defect is only to be found in persons of small intelli
gence.

Narrowness, as the word indicates, is only a want
of expansion. The view is not wide enough, it does
not embrace the whole, and it is only this complete
view that permits the value of each detail to be seen ;
on the contrary, some particular point is seized with
great clearness and energy, and given undue propor
tions, and it is not realised as possible that some other
virtue, such as charity, for example, may on occasion
forbid humility, not to exist, but to appear.

Now the portion of truth that is found even in this
error satisfies and gains the assent of the judgment.
Then let us extend our view of the truth as far as
possible.

The remedy is difficult of application, for it consists
of self-doubt, and doubt of that part of the self that we
are wont to defend most jealously : our judgment.
Yet we must not hesitate, this self-doubt must be
aroused, and we may aid it with the reading of
books, and by laying open our minds freely to our
director.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 169

We shall find that as our minds widen they will
become more just.

Education is often the sole cause of the defect of
narrowness, and the inculcation of larger views may be
a sufficient corrective.

If, however, the long application of narrow principles
has developed a kind of mental twist, the cure is more
laborious, and will be still more so if the evil has
attacked the nature of the mind itself.

How are we to have sufficient judgment to recognise
our own false judgment ?

II. Pusillanimous humility. — We have already seen
that pusillanimity belongs not to the mind but to the
character, and it consists in a disposition peculiarly
accessible to fear.

Fear may arise from an exaggerated circumspection,
or from a feeble will. These two defects alike produce
hesitancy and instability, though in a different manner.
The mind that is over-circumspect foresees numberless
possibilities in every decision, and is uncertain how to
act ; the feeble character would and would not, all the
time seeing clearly what it ought to do. Neither the
one nor the other can act decidedly, and both are
equally liable in the course of action to be deterred
from proceeding by the slightest obstacle.

These defects are not peculiar to mediocre souls.
Some people are firm in governing others, and yet
when it is a matter of themselves they are tortured
with fears; they see pride in everything they do and
think.

Pusillanimity, then, does not exactly indicate a want
of intelligence, but an intelligence of a particular
stamp, and it is often allied with extreme subtlety of

i;o THE PATH OF HUMILITY

mind. A multitude of aspects blinds, and numberless
possible solutions confuse.

3. The choice of the remedy depends on the cause
that produces the evil. Are you excessively prudent,
very particular, even meticulous? Force yourself to
quick decisions in ordinary matters. Even in serious
matters do not reflect too much, and always make
definite decisions. Then, having once decided, do not
call the matter into question again, and if you have
blundered never give way to self-reproach. Even the
most wary do not escape such mistakes of human
foresight.

If you are of an irresolute nature, easily put off by
difficulties or opposition, beware, for you must not call
this defect humility, you are simply giving way to
your own weakness.

Stir up your courage, then, and impose upon yourself
the duty of safeguarding more carefully your rights
and your dignity. Maintain your commands and
your observations so long as you are clearly in the
right.

A narrow and pusillanimous humility gives to the
face, the words, the whole exterior, something con
strained and even artificial that makes others feel ill at
ease, or leads them to impose. Direction will greatly
help and encourage those who find in themselves such
defects.

At bottom, narrowness and pusillanimity proceed
from preoccupation with self, and forgetfulness of God.
These faults are contrary to prudence, whose mission it
is to control all the virtues. They also offend against
the social order, and bring discredit upon humility.

O my God, I beseech Thee give me that simple and

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL i;i

courageous humility that only looks to Thee, but in
looking to Thee feels all the force of duty and all the
fearlessness of zeal.

III. HUMILITY THAT IS FALSE IN EXPRESSION

No one should pass over this subject, for very few
entirely escape this defect, and the commoner a defect
is the less it is noticed. Without being conscious of it,
I may have much to correct in this regard. Yet I do
not wish to be either false or artificial in my words or
in my exterior. I desire that my humility, if it is not of
a very high order, may at least be genuine. Thy light,
O my God ! Thy indulgence ! Thy help !

I. The nature of this defect. — Man has a certain
inveterate tendency to place virtue in exterior actions,
while, in reality, these actions are only the manifesta
tion and effects of virtue. He is thus led by the logic
of this mistake to content himself with forms of words
and vain appearances. The baleful effects of such an
idea prove too late the falseness of it. The Jews, in the
time of our Lord, had fallen into this error. When they
had said to their poor parents, " The gift whatsoever
proceedeth from me, shall profit thee," they believed
they had fulfilled the law, not realising that besides
due respect this law exacts the love that assists and is
not satisfied with a mere form of words. Again, the
Pharisees believed they were humble because they
prostrated themselves in the streets, while they were
entirely convinced of their superiority, and held others
in supreme contempt.

Certainly we are not so bad as that ! The teaching
of the Gospel has penetrated Christian society too
deeply to allow us to fall into such abuses, but we must

i;2 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

take care, for our nature is still human, and human
nature never alters essentially, and is prone to indulge
its propensities as far as want of reflection and the
conventions will allow. Jesus asks us to be humble,
then let us say that we are worth nothing, let us exhibit
towards our neighbour a gentler attitude and more
deferent manners, let us go into church with more
humble looks. Look at us, how humble we are ! No
one, of course, will say this explicitly, but some of us
are secretly influenced by such sentiments.

Probe your heart well. When you say that you are
worthless, do you really mean it? When you abase
yourself, would you permit others to look down on
you ? Do you not rebel when someone expresses
doubt of your capacity, when you are neglected by
someone or contradicted ?

" There are some people who say that they are
nothing, that they are abject, miserable, and imperfect,
and yet who cannot bear the least word of disapproval,
but complain of it at once; and if you notice some
imperfection in them, on no account must you mention
it, for they would be offended."

" I do not call humility," once said S. Francis of
Sales, "that ceremonious assemblage of words, of
gestures, prostrations, reverences, and genuflections,
when all is done, as it often is, without any inner sense
of real abjection, or of just esteem for others; for all
that is only the vain amusement of feeble minds, and
ought rather to be named the phantom of humility."

II. The origin of this defect. — Every society forms
for itself a language, and each member borrows its
expressions. Pious people necessarily adopt certain

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 173

expressions of humility that in some are perfectly
sincere, while in others they are only an echo. This
is often harmless enough, since forms of words do not
count, for much ; but at the same time it is prejudicial
to humility, since it disparages it, and to piety since
it discredits it.

What we say, that let us sincerely strive to feel, for
there should be a perfect correspondence between our
words and our sentiments.

How beautiful humility is when it is sincere ! But if
it is ever so little defective in this respect, it loses all its
beauty and charm.

This is a great lesson for ordinary virtue. If our
humility is not deep enough to inspire us with the
lowly sentiments of the Saints — do not let us express
such sentiments, let us content ourselves with some
thing less, that has at least the beauty of truth. We
are certain to be aware of some defects that we may
honestly avow, some inferiorities of which we are con
vinced, and to experience some wrongs that we can
learn to accept with a good grace. Let our humility
consist in these things. It may be less profound, but
it will be more sincere; it may not inspire us with an
extreme sense of abasement, but it will at least deliver
us from pretence.

At the same time, we must desire an ever-deepening
self-knowledge, and grace to enter more fully into the
Divine secrets, so that by contrast our misery may be
more clearly revealed to us, and the new sentiments
thus aroused may be displayed in our words and
attitude with an equal sincerity.

S. Francis of Sales tells us that to speak of self is

1/4 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

as perilous as walking on a tight-rope. We may add
that there is one thing more perilous, and that is to
speak evil of self. Who, indeed, thinks really badly
of self, and is truly anxious to be believed ?

Let us leave to those who are really Saints the con
temptuous expressions that they heap upon them
selves ; their humility is sufficiently profound to go so
far. Let us only speak of ourselves when it is
absolutely necessary, and before doing so let us ask
ourselves if duty imposes it.

Let us sum up the various sources of confusion that
we have been considering. What petty falsities ! what
deliberate exaggerations ! what secret desires for
esteem beneath humiliating confessions !

It is important also to rid our speech of certain
phrases which use, and use alone, maintains in certain
circles. These expressions shock those who do not
believe in their sincerity ; and they are apt to be taken
up by others who have no real use for them.

III. The calculations of pride. — Far more grave is
the abuse of these phrases, when, instead of their being
a matter of simple custom, they are deliberately used
as a means of gaining esteem.

Humility in the service of pride ! Could anything
be more despicable ? Scripture has branded it in these
terms : Est qui nequitur humiliat se, interiora ejus
plena sunt dolo — " There is one that humbleth himself
wickedly, and his interior is full of deceit."

While affecting self-effacement, the idea is only to
make self more sought after : self is ill spoken of in
order that it may be better spoken of; it asks to be
hated that it may be praised. It accuses itself of a
fault because the fault is well known, exaggerating
its evil deeds that they may be overlooked in the sham

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 175

humility of the confession, while the less they are
believed the more they are insisted upon.

" Such humility," says Rodriguez, " should be called
a hooked humility, because it is used to attract praise,
as a hook is used to draw towards us objects that are
out of reach."

IV. A HUMILITY THAT IS FALSE EVEN IN SENTIMENT

When we ask ourselves this question : " Is my
humility true ?" we bring our attention to bear, as we
have just done, upon the conformity of word with
sentiment.

We seldom push our examination so far that we
begin to be doubtful of the truth of the sentiment itself.

There are, however, factitious convictions which yet,
astonishing as it may seem, are sincere. Now, though
sincere, they are not real, and so consequently are not
capable of supporting virtue. Hence the importance
of this fresh inquiry.

An impression of humility may be produced by
several causes ; all, nevertheless, have their origin and
common basis in the esteem that this virtue enjoys;
esteem is a lustre with which pride loves to adorn
itself. In a pious society, the glory that surrounds
humility is the most seductive of all, and the more
exalted this society may be, the more powerful is the
attraction.

In the fifth Meditation of these exercises this
influence has been analysed from the point of view of
education, but as it is exercised at every period of the
spiritual life it is good to ask oneself from time to
time if the humility we may have acquired does not
rest upon some such influence, and is not therefore
artificial.

i;6 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

I. The influence of prevalent ideas, or artificial
humility. — The society from which we borrow our
expressions also influences our thought. Pious people
read the lives of the Saints, they feel a great admira
tion for their heroic virtue ; but what strikes them most
of all is the miracle of their humility, the extraordinary
contrast of self -con tempt in the midst of dazzling
perfection.

From this arises the desire to imitate them in this
virtue. So far good, for the sense of emulation is given
to us as the most active agent of progress. But a fatal
mistake is made when these souls begin to persuade
themselves, while still only little advanced, that they
have attained to the hi mility of the Saints because
they so greatly admire it, and to believe themselves
called to profess the sam~ self -contempt that the Saints
themselves professed.

Their disconsolate accents stirring the emulation of
these souls, they ask : " May we not also use such
expressions ?" An excellent reason occurs to them and
reassures them : " Such sentiments are in still better
accord with my misery."

Well, let them try, let them repeat that long litany
of humiliating confessions ; but suppose some friendly
person interrupts and asks : " Is this really true ? Are
you indeed so vile, so abject, so guilty ?" Would you
believe it ? Instantly they feel chilled and surprised,
a pin-prick has burst the bubble.*

Not having the clear insight and special graces of
the Saints, they are only a reflection, an echo. Such

* It must be understood that these remarks do not apply
to truly humble souls. We are only studying here suspect
humility.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL i;/

humility is only on the surface, it does not spring from
deep conviction. To the Saints God reveals Himself
so beautifully and so holily exacting, and yet so
amiable, that their own wretchedness frightens and
distresses them. On their knees, their faces in the dust,
they taste their own degradation. The rending cries
of their prayer come from their hearts; in vain they
repeat them, in vain they seek still stronger expres
sions ; they never succeed in putting into words the full
extent of the worthlessness they are convinced of.

If we have not this intense feeling of humility, let
us at least have the humility to recognise it, and do not
let us try to disguise by a vain show what is really
wanting to us. Let us be content to implore the grace
the better to realise our thousand imperfections, which,
unconsciously to ourselves, perhaps, fill our lives :
defects which, clearly seen by others, remain hidden
to our eyes. Let us adopt the wise rule of inclining to
condemn ourselves in doubtful cases, but let us not
allow our conscience, our reflection of God, the pure
expression of our soul, to be dulled and warped by a
habit of conventional sentiment. Let there be nothing
artificial, but let us be true to ourselves, and above all
to God, Who reads our hearts.

II. The influence of temperament or illusive
humility. — If the influence of environment is felt in
our exterior actions, the influence of temperament
largely controls us interiorly. If certain surroundings
tend to create a superficial humility, there are tem
peraments that create an illusory humility, and they
are those that are dominated by imagination.

An artistic soul frequently dwells in an ideal world
outside the actual and real. What she feels and

12

i/8 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

expresses is the outcome of the influence of the
moment. It is so natural to her to play a part that she
deceives even herself. As in the preceding cases we
have noted, ererything is on the surface. Certain
poets, cold and dry of heart, have been known to run
through the whole gamut of human feeling, and in
spite of their appalling egotism have extolled the
purest devotion with enthusiasm ! Reading their
poems, we might exclaim, "What a heart!" and ex
perience regret that we were not acquainted with
them.

Their imagination grasps a part, enters into it, and
finally becomes identified with it. And it is in the part
that they feel and speak and act.

If we ventured to suggest to such men that in
practical life neither these sentiments nor this conduct
appeared to be theirs, they would turn from us dis
dainfully and imagine they were not understood.
They are sincere, for what imagination has produced
they fancy is their own ; they have two lives, and they
know only one of them.

There are also some imaginary humble people.
They admire this virtue and are penetrated with its
beauty ; they have the love of it, the desire, and perhaps
even the inclination for it, but rather in imagination
than in reality.

They may go on to speak of it and to exalt its
charms; the impression deepens, and soon what they
admire and exalt seems to be their own possession.
Alas ! it is only so in imagination ; and it is as fac
titious as it is ephemeral. It is a dream.

At break of day, that is to say, in contact with
reality, everything disappears, and behold ! a soul pre-

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 179

occupied only with self and full of pride. It was as
though there were two persons, and the doubling
wrought the illusion. It is not true that man possesses
two distinct personalities, as some visionaries declare ;
he has only two dissimilar modes of being. What he
is in the actual is really he, but when he wraps himself
up in the ideal he becomes an imaginary being-, the
victim of himself.

If your imagination is lively and ardent, take care,
it may carry into humility, as into everything else, its
power of illusion. It only realises itself in dream.
Fallen to earth, it soon loses its wings, and, quickly
tired if not undeceived, it gives up the task like a
coward.

We shall soon see how to discern the true from the
false, for the imagination, far from being an enemy in
itself, may be a powerful aid, but it is uncertain and
calls for control.

III. The influence of habit or lifeless humility. — To
the influence of environment and that of temperament
may be added a third source of illusion : the persistent
influence of virtues that have disappeared.

This is found in persons, really proud, who feel the
need of making acts of humility, of confessing their
weaknesses or their ill-deeds. They put themselves in
the lowest place and even accuse themselves of public
wrongs ; and, surprising thing ! they do all this with
a kind of conviction.

What is the explanation of this phenomenon ? We
find it in an observation of S. Francis of Sales. It is
spoken, it is true, of charity, but it is perfectly applic
able to humility. "What remains of love," he says,
" survive in a guilty soul, are not charity, but a bent

i8o THE PATH OF HUMILITY

and an inclination that a multitude of acts has given
to the heart ; , . . it is simply an echo that repeats the
voice. It has not the sound of a living being, but of a
rock, hollow and empty."

Yes, when the proud man shows such severity
towards himself, his accent is false ; he repeats himself
with a forced insistence, and we feel, without knowing
why, a sense of uneasiness on hearing his exaggerated
and embittered phrases.

A form of words once sincere has been retained. A
need once felt persists from mere habit. Such is the
nature of this humility, whose power is still so great
that sometimes it may even provoke emotion and
tears, and is not altogether wanting in sweetness and
sincerity.

"Alack!" adds S. Francis of Sales, "is it not
pitiable to see a soul flattering itself with the idea
that it is holy, living in repose, and finding at the last
that its sanctity is counterfeit, its repose lethargy, and
its joy mere folly ?"

We will close with a remark that should be noted by
fervent souls.

A soul that is admired for her humility and knows
it, will find fresh delight in making herself humble,
and in believing herself so. The greater impression
she sees that she produces, the more she will entrench
herself in the sentiment of her nothingness. But while
she believes she is tasting pure humility, perhaps she
is only enjoying the sweetness of universal esteem, and
• it may be the action of this poison that is prompting
her to increased ardour.

Re-flections. — O my God, I am filled with fear, there
are so many possible illusions into which I may fall.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 181

If I feel an aversion for humility, I am not humble ;
and if I admire it, I may be no more so.

I make many acts of humility in my meditations;
I control myself on occasions when my self-love is
wounded ; I feel pleasure in speaking ill of myself and
the thought of humility sheds a sensible joy on my
heart ; but am I really humble ?

Stay ! of these numerous acts in meditation we have
nothing to say, except that they are so little difficult
to make that they can scarcely be said to bear witness
to the virtue.

When we control ourselves on occasions when self-
love is wounded, it is no absolute proof that we are
actuated by humility ; we may be prompted by simple
prudence, and at times self-love itself imposes this
conduct; the wish not to be considered proud may be
our true motive.

As for feeling pleasure in speaking ill of self, and
the sensible joy that the thought of humility evokes,
we must not make much of such things ; in great souls
what may be a real delight, in ordinary souls is more
often only self-complacence, or a Platonic admiration
of the virtue. Wait for positive trials, a slight
that nothing can undo, preference shown to others at
your expense, a failure for which you are made
responsible, confidence withdrawn, or even a well-
merited reproach. Ah ! if the gust for humility
remains, if it welcomes these detractions unostenta
tiously, if it sheds upon the soul a profound content
ment, and gives to the spiritual life an additional
fervour, be reassured; such a gust, producing such
effects, is a gust without alloy. It does not belong to
nature. God alone can inspire it.

1 82 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

It is, doubtless, good to strive for progress ; to carry
humility, like all the other virtues, to the utmost limits,
but it must be done in all sincerity.

We can never repeat to ourselves often enough the
necessity to express only what we feel, to be as true to
ourselves as we desire to be to our neighbour. In our
prayers, in the elevations of our heart to God, let us be
honest enough to deny to ourselves every humble
phrase that either the sentiments of the Saints or our
own imagination alone suggest.

Such phrases can only produce an illusion of the
virtue, and perhaps even pride itself. Being in our
mouths empty and vain, they are neither worthy of
God nor helpful to ourselves.

Ah ! how good and how beautiful is the true ! It
alone is at the same time light and strength, for it
alone is virtue.

A GLANCE AT THE TWO SUCCEEDING
MEDITATIONS

Leaving the painful and even saddening considera
tion of false humility, let us raise our eyes towards the
true. Its features will appear to us full of light in the
marked tendency to self-effacement, sincere contempt
for self, and the inclination to esteem others that it
exhibits.

Its direct action will produce peace, fervour, and
fruitfulness, triple manifestation of a beautiful health
of soul.

It will be an easy study, for it is but a summing up
of the results of principles already established; yet it

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 183

will be an instructive study, for at each step we shall
discover unexpected beauties; and a useful study,
since from it may be built up a practical doctrine; it
is also an encouraging- study in which all is light,
loveliness, and joy.

NOTE. — Those who have the time and inclination may with
advantage make three meditations from the matter of the
following exercises. On account of their importance certain
reflections and affections will be suggested.

FIRST MEDITATION
EXERCISE XXII

SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUE HUMILITY

First point : Self-effacement.
Second point : Self-contempt.
Third point : Esteem of others.

Evening Preparation. — We shall study to-morrow
some of the distinctive features of true humility.
Humility is a virtue, and as such should be a
permanent force. But upon what point will she bring
her efforts to bear ? Upon that dangerous tendency
that must be controlled : the tendency to overestimate
ourselves and to seek to increase the esteem of others
for us.

In the first place it opposes to this weakness an
inclination to self-effacement ; going farther, it creates
an attraction for contempt, which, in certain souls,
becomes a veritable love.

Is not such a disposition against nature ? Not so,
for being eminently peaceful and beneficent, it could

1 84 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

only oppose nature in her unruly actions, and its own
action is safeguarded by prudence. Prudence, indeed,
is the safeguard of all the virtues : she maintains
personal dignity, allows all useful initiative, and,
indeed, assures that all which ought to be done will be
done, humility giving to activity a certain impersonal
character, thus allowing God freely to act upon the
soul, and preserving the soul in perfect obedience to
Him.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace not to be discouraged
at the sight of all that humility requires.

I. Inclination to self-effacement. — Ama nesciri —
" Love to be unknown " (" Imitation ").

"Humility hides all human virtue and perfection,
and will only allow them to appear at the call of
charity. Above all, she is simple, and does not wish
to appear to know that of which she is ignorant, nor
to have the air of not knowing what she knows" (S.
Francis of Sales).

She is not fond of praise, though she will not
disclaim what she deserves. But she taxes her in
genuity to distract attention from herself, and this is
very easy. Speak to others of themselves, and you
will quickly be forgotten.

A less humble person will put on a startled air and
will deny that she has done anything ; this is not true
humility. There must be truth and simplicity even,
and above all, in the humility of eff acement.

When she succeeds, it is to God that she gives the
glory; when she fails, it is herself alone that she
accuses. Reason expresses surprise, but the humble
soul explains it to herself perfectly. Is not God the

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 185

first and necessary principle in every good action ? Is
it possible that the Perfect can have any share in the
imperfect ?

For the rest, she thinks very little of the good that
she does, still less of the praises she receives. She
carefully avoids the complacency that pride is ever
seeking to instil, for she knows that the least taint of
it would be a source of corruption to all the good that
God might implant in the soul.

To choose the work that is least seen, the place that
is most hidden, appears to her quite natural. She is
is ambitious for no distinction, and if she is called to
do great things, she undertakes them with simple
modesty. In everything she seeks to be forgotten, and
as the traveller in the heat she loves the shade and
prefers it. She inclines to the lowly and the poor, for
she sees Jesus in them. "Whatsoever ye have done
unto the least of these, ye have done it unto Me." Oh !
what a revealer is humility !

Reflections and sentiments: (i) An impression of
profound and gentle peace. (2) Free and entire con
formity to the Divine Will. (3) A readiness to accept,
to listen, to love. (4) A simplicity that eliminates all
artificiality and makes humility sincere, since the
detachment from multiplicity makes God our one aim.
(5) Its happy influence on the intelligence of the truths
of the faith. (6) Mysterious instinct that reveals the
good. (7) A congenial atmosphere in which all the
virtues develop. (8) A disposition favourable to the
interior life. (9) A heart emptied of self that God fills.
(10) The greatest good has always been done by those
who efface themselves; God takes them by the hand
and accompanies them. (11) To resolve upon this

1 86 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

humility. (12) To compare our lives with these ideals
and to make practical resolutions.

II. An inclination to self-contempt. — "He who
knows himself well, despises himself " (" Imitation ").

A self-effacing humility is such in regard to others ;
it moderates and directs the innate desire we have for
their esteem. The humility that inclines to self-
contempt addresses itself to another propensity, the
esteem of self, which, unregulated, has a most baneful
influence.

Certain natures have great need to cultivate an
inclination to self -contempt, for if the desire for the
esteem of others is a more general, excessive self-
esteem is a much more powerful sentiment.

It makes the truly proud, those who give themselves
airs and impose on others, brush aside every, even the
most reasonable opposition, disdain advice, and
despise their fellows. Without attaining such propor
tions, pride is still odious and disturbing.

Let us look sincerely into our lives, be honest about
our sentiments, and if we discover any trace of this
dangerous vice, let us resolutely and courageously
strive to acquire self-contempt.

The humble soul applies itself to find out how
little she is worth, and to this end dwells upon her
inferiorities in talent, in exterior advantages, and even
in gifts of grace.

Seeing her defects and evil tendencies, her unstable
virtue, she can only blush at the signs of an esteem to
which she is obliged to submit. " If they only knew !"
she murmurs.

When she chances to commit one of these blunders
that are annoying to self-love, she applies herself to

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 187

love it, and forbids herself any mitigation of the
vexatious impression.

If she commits a fault, she looks at it from two
points of view : the fault as it is an offence against
God, and in this light she hates it ; but as a humiliating
exhibition of her own bad instincts and incurable
weakness she rejoices in it. Yes, she rejoices in it, for
the fault is pardoned, it is no more ; but the humiliation
remains, and every humiliation is useful, since it helps
us to become humble, and calls forth the mercy of God.

Ever distrustful of self, the humble soul willingly
asks advice ; if prudence permits it, she will even apply
to her inferiors, and when success attends her efforts
she gladly attributes it to the counsels she has received.

The religious who is truly humble makes the task
of monition easy and sweet to her sisters. " Tell me
quite frankly all the defects you have noticed in me.
Oh ! how true that is, and how I thank you ! . . .
You will see that, thanks to you, I shall end by becom
ing better." And she feels all this sincerely and joy
fully out of love for humility and perfection.

It is in the Confessional that the humble soul
gives free rein to her need for humiliations. Certain
unworthy motives which make her blush, certain
despicable faults of the past, she is pleased to make
these known and to recall them. She is careful not to
lessen the effect of her confession by exaggeration or
by any other easy means; she wishes to appear vile,
and not humble even, in the eyes of her Confessor.

We need scarcely say that truth forbids her to
attribute to herself wrongs that she has not committed ;
and wisdom will not allow her to make herself mis
understood under the pretext of humiliating herself.

188 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Certain trials are an especial test of self-contempt.
You are found fault with; you are admonished for a
mistake or for an imprudence. Stop to think, and if
the remarks are just, candidly thank those who made
them, and take care that you do not add one of those
protestations that betray wounded self-love : " Oh !
you are quite right ! I have nothing but faults ! ah ! if
you knew all my .weakness ! "

On the other hand, when you give advice and it is
disdained, if you show displeasure, and in a temper
say some such words as these, "After all, it is your
affair; and besides, you know better than I," you
certainly are not acting under the influence of humility.
You are making an act of charity a matter of self-
interest, while true humility, considering what is for
the best, would, in the case of an equal, have gently
entreated; or in the case of an inferior of whom she
has the charge, have remonstrated firmly but kindly.

Reflections and sentiments: (i) Moral beauty of
this disposition. (2) Principle of wisdom. (3) A sure
safeguard. (4) An incomparable power for good.
(5) A well of tenderness. (6) Who would not love such
a soul ? . (7) Who would refuse it confidence ? (8) What
are the feelings of God towards it ? Do we not see
Him unceasingly ready to show it His Love. (9) Ah !
who will give me to forget myself, to lose myself in
sincere self -contempt ? (10) A long look at Jesus
humiliated, (i i) To ask fervently the grace to under
stand, to desire, to will, (i 2) To do our best to acquire
an habitual disposition to self-contempt, and to keep
ourselves free from all vain self-complacence.

III. The inclination to esteem others. — " It is great
wisdom and perfection to think nothing of ourselves,

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 189
and to think always well and highly of others "

("Imitation").

Esteem for our neighbour is not a direct act of
humility, but it is the most usual result of it and the
most certain proof.

We may be deceived about the love we think we
have for self-effacement and contempt; but we may
likewise be reassured if we feel a frank inclination to
esteem others.

If I have a genuine love of effacement, nothing
makes me take umbrage; if I feel a sincere contempt
for myself, I extol others the more in comparison.

Pride, on the contrary, exalts self and depreciates
others.

Altos reputa meliores te — "Esteem others better
than yourselves," said S. Paul. Here is our practical
rule. The humble soul does not prefer herself to any
one, and never thinks evil of others.

Her own faults occupy her too much to give her time
to look for the faults of others. When she comes across
them she excuses them ; and if she cannot do so, she
regards them indulgently.*

She is even more jealous in this respect over her
thoughts than over her words, for they are of the first
importance to virtue. She has a particular aversion
to that characteristic sign of pride, contempt for others.

If such a sentiment finds its way into her heart, she
at once confesses it, and in order to destroy its

* This does not mean that she approves what is evil or
imperfect, and this conduct cannot be applied in cases where
judgment is necessary either for the direction of others or in
self-defence. To incline to judge others more leniently than
self, does not at all imply the desire to imitate their conduct,
if this conduct is faulty.

igo THE PATH OF HUMILITY

influence she combats the bad impression, forcing
herself to replace it with a more formidable one. To
this end she fastens her thoughts on the good qualities
of the person in question, and remembers the love that
Jesus bears towards him.

In all the relationships of life she preserves a
supremely reasonable attitude. Humility inclines her
to show herself just, impartial, and generous. She is
neither exacting nor peevish. She is not offended by
neglect or want of consideration; she is thoroughly
sweet and easily grateful, because she sincerely
believes that she deserves nothing.

Should she by chance be the object of injustice or
even violence, far from giving way to indignation, she
begins to examine herself to see if she has given
occasion for it, since, remembering her own offences,
she acknowledges that God has a perfect right to make
use of others to punish her. Again, nothing is more
gentle than the humble heart, it seems to have lost the
power to be irritated : it feels itself so poor ! *

Re-flections and sentiments: (i) To admire the
Divine ordering of virtues. Charity, being in a sense
born of humility, finds under its wings the most effec
tive safeguard, the warmth that makes it generous.
(2) How easy it is with such a disposition to bear
with one's neighbour ! (3) The esteem we have for
others gives us the power to encourage them, and
encouragement is the best means for acting on the will.
(4) What would a family, a group of people, be, each
member of which was governed by charity founded on

* This disposition is not opposed to the lawful defence of
our rights and our interests; on the contrary, it renders us
more firm by the calmness that permits clear sight, and
by the benevolence that is ever open to reconciliation.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 191

humility ? — no aversions, no bitter reproaches, no
jealousies, no disagreeable comparisons, no irritability,
no slights. (5) Observe that the esteem of one's
neighbour that is born of humility is spontaneous, and
arises from a real sense of his worth. That which is
exacted by the precept of charity may do the same
actions, but by imposing them upon itself. Now,
actions that are forced may be just as virtuous, but
they are neither so hearty nor so gentle. (6) To con
ceive a lively desire to esteem everyone, and especially
those nearest to me. (7) To examine my conduct in
their regard, my attitude, my proceedings, my words.
(8) To probe my heart. Shall I find there only benev
olence ? or am I not rather contrary, difficult, exacting,
and discontented? (9) To beg fervently for the
humility that disposes to the esteem of others : to ask
for it with entreaty.

A CONSIDERATION OF THE PART

PLAYED BY THE WILL AND THE

FEELINGS IN HUMILITY

Following those meditations that disturb our habits
of mind, let us study seriously the impression they
have made upon us.

The chief is a kind of discouragement that almost
amounts to fear : " On these terms I am not and I
cannot be humble ! If I abase myself, I do it reluct
antly ; if I conceive contempt for myself, it is without
much conviction ; and I do not feel any cordial esteem
for othefs. Without an inclination for these things,
how can I be virtuous ?"

192 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Do you desire these dispositions? Assuredly.
Well, that is to tend towards them ! Cost what it will,
are you resolved to exercise yourself in them ? Most
certainly. Why, that is humility of the will, and for
many souls it is the only humility possible.

Know that virtue resides in the will alone, and the
inclination that forms its essence is an inclination of
the will and has nothing to do with feeling.

Gust will perhaps follow long habit, or will result
from a very great love ; it will become a very powerful
aid to action; it will give to virtue a more gentle
aspect, but in itself it will never constitute virtue, and
virtue may exist, grow, and act without it. Let us
make a searching analysis of this distinction between
will and feeling. It will not only illumine the present
case, but will throw its light upon a great many other
problems.

I

We must not confuse will and sensibility. Will is
determination, choice; sensibility may be either gust
or disgust. Gust is the pleasing sense of attraction,
disgust the unpleasant sense of repulsion.

Sensibility and will obey distinct laws. Sensi
bility loves what is in accordance with its tastes, the
will what is in accordance with duty. It is then
possible to love and detest the same object at the same
time. Thus nature may delight in a gratification of
self-love that the will disowns, and may feel disgust in
a humiliation that the will fully accepts. In a matter
of virtue, to prefer is to love. Virtue, we repeat, resides
in the will alone.

It, however, controls our feelings, for its influence
is felt in every part of our moral nature. Now the

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 193

more powerful it is, the more it keeps sensibility in
check, and in its turn feeling lends to virtue the im
portant co-operation of its gusts and ardours.

II

Let us here observe that the power of virtue over
sensibility is neither a direct nor absolute power.

The will cannot order this capricious faculty to
have such or such impressions ; but it can present to it
in a favourable light the objects that may create them.

This power, having only indirect means, is not
reliable in j s effects. The wished-for impression may
not be produced, a thousand obstacles arising from
the disposition, and difficult to analyse, may prevent it.
Sensible gust, in fact, depends on temperament,
favourable circumstances, novelty, etc., all of them
things about which we have no choice.

God also intervenes, sometimes allowing the free
play of feeling, sometimes acting Himself. " I will
increase thy sensibility," said the Saviour to Blessed
Margaret Mary. Our self-love indeed often acquires
an unhealthy sensitiveness. A certain humiliation that
has seemed supportable up to a point suddenly
becomes intolerable.

If temptation should then bring us trouble, disgust,
and rebellion, the trial is complete; but virtue may
remain intact in the summit of the will.

Courage ! God wills. We shall come out of it more
detached, firmer, more beloved of God, and, what is
of particular interest to us here, more humble.

194 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

SECOND MEDITATION
EXERCISE XXIII

(OF WHICH THREE MEDITATIONS MAY BE MADE)
TRUE HUMILITY— ITS EFFECTS

First point : Peace.
Second point : Fervour.
Third point : Fruitfulness

Evening Preparation. — A virtue may be known
either by certain characteristics or by its effects.
Characteristics reveal its essence, effects its action.
Interior humility must be true, and equally true the
humility that is displayed in action.

How encouraged we may be if we find in our dis
position signs of humility, and in our lives some
manifestations of its effects ! What a warning if we
find characteristics or effects contrary to the virtue !

Peace, fervour, and fruitfulness are the effects of
humility. Then humility is the spiritual life in its
highest manifestation, a life that is master of itself,
that has influence and is wide in its range. The
atmosphere is pure, the life vigorous, the harvest rich,
the heart enlarges, action becomes easy, and success
crowns effort !

O my God, make me to understand and to taste
these things, and to draw from them courage and even
joy ! If remorse seizes me, and discouragement assails
me, at the sight of my life, so cold, so unfruitful, show
me that everything may yet be set right, and that, in
my unfaithfulness and distressing poverty, I have the
strongest reason for making myself humble. It con-

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 195

cerns Thy glory, O my God, it concerns Thy reign in
souls, O Jesus. If it must be, abase me, break me; I
consent, I shall perhaps be like the grain of wheat,
that to grow must be hidden in the earth and trodden
under foot.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace to realise all the good
that humility will bring me in its train.

I. Peace. — Invenietis requiem — "Thou shalt find
peace." It is the promise of the Divine Master; it is
explicit ; it is the special promise to humility. It is in
the nature of things. In fact, peace may be defined as
the reign of order. Pax est tranquillitas ordinis (S.
Augustine).

Humility, indeed, brings order into every depart
ment of life. It makes us submissive to God, gentle
with our neighbour, resdgned in our own troubles.
From whence, then, can disturbance come ?

Peace is the happiness of our exile on earth, as
enjoyment will be the happiness of our heavenly home
— both are the reign of God.

Peace is the most imperative need of the soul. In
order to come nearer to God, we must be pure, it is
true, but we must also be in peace.

Pride is a disorder that disturbs us. A wheel out
of gear produces trouble. The proud man is wont to
complain, of men, of events, of God Himself. He is
obstinate, self-willed, and easily irritated. He is
ambitious and he vexes himself. Failure depresses
him and success does not bring him peace. He seeks
himself instead of seeking God, and he is never
satisfied. Happy he if, under the blow of some

196 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

especially bitter failure, he knows how to bow his head,
for in the humble confession of his error he will find
peace again.

Humility calms grief and repairs the evil. She puts
us again in our rightful place. She gives us back to
ourselves and opens to us the Heart of God. What
repose in that Heart after so much agitation ! What
a sense of well-being after so much suffering!
Invenietis requiem.

There are great humiliations that bring with
them an immense peace. They have pierced to the
very depths of the soul ; but a generous humility was
there to welcome them; and their heavenly fire, in
which nothing human is mingled, kindles a lofty joy
which consumes the victim as a holocaust of incom
parable fragrance. It is true that this joy only
illumines the heights. That part of the soul that
touches the earth sometimes dwells in shadow, for the
immolated soul herself needs to remain humble in her
own eyes.

" Be desirous, my son," says the " Imitation," " to
do the will of another rather than thine own. Choose
always to have less rather than more. Seek always the
lowest place, and to be beneath everyone. Wish
always and pray that the will of God may be wholly
fulfilled in thee. Behold, such a man entereth within
the borders of peace and rest." Do we not see here
that it is Humility that traces the road to peace ?

Peace ! Am I not sometimes disturbed, sad, dis
contented with others and with myself ?

This condition may be the result of some
humiliating experience or the distressing sight of some
persistent weakness. Then I had not formed a

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 197

sufficiently low conception of myself; I was not pre
pared to submit to humiliation. I do not find in myself
the facility and inclination that belong to the virtue,
and how far I am from having love of abjection !

What a sacrifice of self-love do I still need to make
to assure myself peace, if I set myself to love all that
abases me, whether within or without, to welcome
abjection with a gentle friendliness ! I admire the
peace of great souls under opprobrium, for it is the
sign of a strength that is mistress of itself; I envy this
moral beauty, but God alone can give it.

II. Fervour. — Humilitas . . . prcebet hominem
patulem ad suscipiendum influxum divince gratia —
" Humility makes a man pliant to the action of divine
grace" (S. Thomas).

Fervour is not holiness, it is not perfection, it is
spiritual activity.

Under its influence the virtues act, help one another,
and are developed. Sometimes this exercise is easy,
sometimes it costs painful effort. Sometimes spring is
here with its charming flowers, and sometimes autumn
with its yellowing leaves that allow the ripe fruits to
be seen.

But consolation or trial, spring or autumn, there is
always the intense movement of life. Now this
activity that is the characteristic of fervour depends
upon the abundance of graces. It depends upon them
to such an extent that without them we are inert, while
with a plenitude of graces we run, we fly. Grace is the
mounting sap, the circulating blood, the vital warmth
that suffuses the whole being.

On the other hand, the distribution of graces rests
entirely with God. Now, God is free and intends

ig8 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

to remain free. Correspondence with grace doubtless
assures graces, but graces are needed even for this
correspondence. What better means of obtaining them
than to please Him ! — and the soul may please God
by its aspect, and may touch Him by its attitude.

Let us study the aspect of the humble soul. It is a
mixture of respect, of submission, and of love; a
reflection of the profound sense of weakness, an
inimitable expression of truth and of simplicity. How
should she not be pleasing to God ?

Let us consider her attitude. It is that of a poor
person who knows his wants and who prays. Her
most natural movement is to look up to God on her
knees. " The prayer of the humble shall pierce the
heavens " — 0 ratio humiliantis se nubes penetrabit.

See how the eyes of the Almighty delight in the
sight of this soul, and how His ears are charmed with
her prayers. His Heart opens and pours upon her
graces as constant as her humble attitude, as powerful
as her humble entreaties.

Divinely illuminated and inspired, this soul
advances towards perfection and sanctity with a step
as rapid as it is sure — perfection that is virtue exer
cised over a long period, sanctity that is slowly
accumulated merit.

Let us cast a glance at the proud soul. It dis
pleases God, closes His Heart, and holds back His
mercies.

It does not feel the need of prayer, it prays little or
badly, and it languishes like a plant without sunshine.
There still remains enough grace to live, but not
enough to live intensely. It could not possibly be
fervent.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 199

Fervour ! I complain of my inner languor, of my
dryness in prayer, of my little ardour in face of tire
some duties. I know that, contrary to the law of all
life, I do not progress. My vigilance relaxes, my
activity slackens, my taste for the things of God is
almost non-existent.

How may this falling off be accounted for ? Is it
not because I lack humility, that disposition that
attracts every grace ? For in order to have a stimulat
ing humility, it is not enough to rid oneself of foolish
vanity and exaggerated pretensions ; I dare even say
it is not enough not to be proud. Negative humility
excludes faults, but it does not arouse fervour. More
positive action is necessary ; a more suppliant regard,
a lively sense of our own lowness, a decided inclination
towards what is humble, a cry to God.

Let us seek fervour in the practice of humility, in a
quickened and sensible feeling of it; and above all,
let us suppress that which saps our strength, the dis
turbing activity of self-love.

III. Fruitfulness. — Nisi granum jrumenti. ... If
the grain of wheat is cast into the earth and trodden
under foot, and assumes all the appearances of death,
it is then that it bears fruit abundantly.

This earth that hides, the feet that crush, this
appearance of death that destroys, these are the
images that speak of humility, this is the condition of
spiritual fruitfulness.

Fervour is the effect of grace acting within; fruit-
fulness is the effect of grace acting without. The one
is productive of good in our own souls, the other is
productive of good in the soul of our neighbour.

Moreover, they obey similar laws.

200 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Let us see what are the dispositions that God looks
for in His helpers. He addresses Himself to the lowly,
to men who can only give Him the most meagre
co-operation. Infirma mundi . . . qua stulta sunt
elegit. To what end ? That His action may be the
more clearly manifest and striking, and may receive
all the glory. A more worthy instrument might appear
to make the cause triumphant by its own efforts. It
might itself even be vain enough to think that it had
done so. The choice of the Apostles and the first
Christians is repeated at all times, and when God
chooses men of great worth, He makes them still
greater in humility, for it is not God's way to ask the
proud for his aid, nor, alas ! to lend him His !

How many talents remain unfruitful for this reason
alone ; and on the other hand, what marvellous results
attend the labours of a humble S. Francis, of a humble
S. Vincent, of a humble woman of the people !

Everything prospers in his hands, and we are
surprised. Everything fails in the hands of the proud,
and he cannot understand it. " He is much cleverer
than such or such another, and has, besides, spent
himself unstintingly." But it is written : " It is not he
who plants and waters who gives the increase!" —
Neque qui -plantat est aliquid, etc.

To this first cause, the blessing of God, we should
add the action of secondary causes. The humble soul
distrusts itself, reflects, and asks advice, and these acts
constitute prudence.

The proud man follows an opposite course of action.
In the first place, he arouses opposition by his
inflexibility, or antipathy by his self-sufficiency. God,
in order to bring about his punishment, has therefore

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 201
only to leave causes themselves to produce their
effects.

Sometimes, however, God does good through the
instrumentality of the proud, either on account of a
mission He has entrusted to him, or in answer to
prayers, or for the love of souls who have only this aid
within reach.

In the day of judgment, however, His action will be
seen none the less clearly, and the foolishness of these
intermediaries will be unveiled.

Ittsipientia eorum manifesto, erit. Thus the work
man throws away a bad instrument as soon as it has
served his purpose.

Fruitfulness ! How is it that I have so little sancti
fying influence on those around me ? How is it that
opportunities of influencing souls come to me so
seldom ? So many in the same position as mine seem
to make their lives fruitful.

And I have an explanation for it. Their least word
has a penetrating charm, the charm of what is im
personal. Their attitude at once disarms resistance;
we feel that they are not obtruding themselves; they
make us appear always to be doing them favours. Yet
they are not depressing, to be near them is to experi
ence an atmosphere of esteem that invites confidence
and helps us to become better.

Without humility, cleverness is a chilly thing, and
activity a simple human effort. Life alone produces
life.

The secret of well-doing is to attract to ourselves
God and His grace. Profound humility empties us
of self and makes room for Him; suppliant humility
attracts Him with an irresistible appeal.

202 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

O my God, give me a more than ordinary humility,
a lively and sensible humility, the only humility that
is fruitful.

Ah ! I will humiliate myself incessantly in success
as well as in reverses. My one security consists in
always recognising that all good comes from Thee,
and that I am an unprofitable servant. When Thou
seest that I no longer wish to detract from Thy glory,
perhaps Thou wilt favour my poor efforts with a
fruitfulness that they have never yet known.*

Peace, fervour, fruitfulness : this is life in order,
movement, and expansion, life spreading itself beneath
a calm and luminous sky, life bearing eternal fruit on
every side, life communicating itself to neighbouring
souls, the supernatural life that is the Life of Christ
in us, the Life of God both in Christ and in our
selves.

Peace ! Oh, give me this peace that nothing can
disturb, because I shall be dead to all disturbing
influences !

Fervour ! Oh, give me this fervour that soars, that
runs, that attains Thee, O God, the supreme object of
our pursuit !

Fruitfulness ! Oh, give me souls, souls born from
mine, from my consecrated love, from my action freed
from all self-seeking ! — the fruitfulness, O my God,
that disseminates Thy Life in souls in order to trans
form them in Thee.

* God may permit the humble soul to remain unfruitful.
Misunderstood in its intentions and in its capacities, set
aside or paralysed in its zealous efforts, it accumulates riches
of grace that are diffused in other ways. There must be in
the Church hidden streams — as there are in the earth silent
waters that fertilise the ground far and wide.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 203

O Humility, dispenser of all these gifts, I admire
thy beauty and power, I love thy beneficence, I long
to obtain thee !

THIRD MEDITATION
EXERCISE XXIV

ON HUMILITY IN OUR RELATIONS WITH GOD

First point : The spirt of submission.
Second point : The spirit of religion.
Third point : The spirit of gratitude and generosity.

Evening Preparation. — I have seen elsewhere what I
am before God. My previous meditations have
rendered me conscious of our respective positions;
to-morrow I shall set myself more especially to reflect
upon the duties that result from them. These duties
embrace the whole Christian life. My aim will be not
so much to ascertain what they are, as to learn how to
impregnate them with humility. Humility will be the
light enabling me to comprehend the range of them,
the unction that will make me realise their com
plexities, the admiration that will arouse the generosity
of my heart. I wish these views to penetrate my life.
I wish the sentiment of humility to accompany every
movement of my soul towards God, that it may pass
into my obedience and make it thorough, resolute, and
sweet : and that, at the same time, it may mingle in all
my religious actions, making them worthy of Him
Whom we adore on our knees, and preserve in me a
keen sense of gratitude and love.

204 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

MEDITATION

PRELUDE.— To ask the grace that the influence of
humility may so permeate my relations with God, as
practically to perfect them.

I. The spirit of submission. — Humilitas prcecipue
consistit in submissione hominis ad Deum — "Humility
consists, above all, in the submission of man to God "
(S. Thomas). Universal submission, covering the
whole vast field of wishes and desires. A firm and
unhesitating submission, involving that order in every
thing which is duty. A happy submission, since it
makes for well-being and greatness.

Humility extinguishes the will of the creature as an
independent determining principle, and substitutes for
it the Divine decisions.

The truly humble soul realises the sublime plea :
May Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. To
it the commandments appear wise and good ; and all
that is opposed to them abhorrent. Such a soul will
not say : " Ah ! if such a thing were not forbidden !"
Such a soul will not make any distinction in sin; she
will not tolerate the least. She willingly embraces the
evangelical counsels, admiring them all, and ready to
put them into practice at the least impulse from on
high.

She listens to the Master speaking within her, and
she recognises His word in the peace it bestows. How
should she resist His inspirations? She does not
forget, however, that the control of her attractions
rests with her director, but in him, too, she listens to
her God.

Faith tells her that Providence governs the atoms

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 205

as well as the stars, and traces out the path of each
individual life as well as the destiny of nations; that
It extends Its fatherly care of our existence even to
the hairs of our head ; and that every event, great or
small, known or unknown, with all that each event
involves, has been foreseen and preordained.

Convinced of these pregnant truths, she cannot
murmur; she is meek under every trial, calm in the
face of every disappointment. Resignation is natural
to her — God has permitted it, God has willed it ; God
is the Master, and this Master is kind. This is all her
philosophy, and it is an admirable philosophy.

Even the most importunate temptations and the
most inexplicable interior trials, find her always
resigned. She suffers doubtless, she trembles, she
fears, but she never asks, Why ? nor exclaims, as some
souls do who have no humility : " It is not just !"

She recollects her faults, her resistance, her pride.
It is the punishment they deserve, and it will be their
cure !

Thus she passes through the midst of darkness and
trials, confident in spite of them, and ever increasing
in humility. Ah ! if she could read the eyes of her
heavenly Father !

II. The spirit of piety. — One of the most remarkable
effects of humility is the spirit of piety it evokes, a
spirit increasing in strength in proportion to the
growth of the virtue. For religious devotion grows
with the deepening realisation of the distance between
the finite and the Infinite that humility gives. In the
light of this realisation, all that concerns God appears
in marvellous outlines and colours.

There is a glory over everything, illuminating

206 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

nature, gilding the poorest church, glowing in the
very name of God. The sight of a plant, an insect, a
little bird's nest, fills the humble soul with reverent
tenderness. The universe is a mighty temple, in which
we should walk with recollection. The voice of
humility is ever crying : " See how small you are, and
how sublime God is!" What joy to exclaim: "He
Who protects my trembling steps is He Who directs
the evolution of the whole vast universe."

The humble soul carries this spirit of piety every
where. S. Francis of Sales, alone in his room, felt
himself in the presence of the Divine Master, and bore
himself with the same respect as in public.

Let us speak of worship, which is the object of the
spirit of piety.

The Church is the palace where the Eternal dwells,
the throne in which He receives official homage, the
altar where every sacrifice is offered.

It is also the holy place from whence the light of
the Divine Word and the unction of the Sacraments
stream down, the consecrated place each stone of which
deserves veneration.

Faith gives us to understand these things, humility
to feel them.

The humble soul, passing over the sacred threshold,
sees her ragged condition, and looks upon herself as a
beggar coming into the palace of a King. This sense
of her poverty exhibits itself in her every movement, in
her gait, her choice of a seat, in her modest attitude.
She does not permit herself the least liberty of look,
the least distraction of thought; such things are not
to be suffered there ! Here is this poor little creature,
compact of nothingness and sin, admitted to intimacy

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 20;

with Him Who is All-in-All. She is filled with
astonishment, she loves, she adores !

Thus everywhere and at all times the humble soul is
disposed to treat God as God.

III. The spirit of gratitude and generosity. — From
the contemplation of our unworthy, poor, and weak
selves, to turn our eyes to heaven, contemplating
the infinite God, Who in His goodness leans down to
this miserable creature in order to raise, to heal, to
enrich, and to love it, is surely to give to our gratitude
the truest reality and the most powerful stimulus.
And this is the work of humility.

Ingratitude frequently arises less from want of
heart than from indifference and forgetfulness.

Brought face to face with kindness, man is attracted
by it, but it too often passes unnoticed.

Divine benefactions surround us on all sides, daily
they are poured out upon us all, and we are so accus
tomed to enjoy them that we treat them as if they
came of themselves, without a directing thought.

Even special blessings do not always arrest our
distracted attention. The supernatural intercourse of
God with our souls is in some sort continuous. Special
graces are not rare, yet alas ! our eyes remain closed.

At times, however, some obvious favour makes us
open them, and we exclaim: "How good God is!"
But soon, busy with His gifts, we forget the Giver.
We are like little children who allow themselves to be
loaded with attentions with the most unconscious
egotism.

Now, nothing makes us so aware of God's benefits,
nothing so arouses gratitude, as the spirit of humility.
I have deserved to be abandoned, and I am the object

208 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

of the most attentive solicitude ! I have deserved
hatred, and I am the object of love ! This contrast may
be indefinitely amplified, it covers the whole extent of
our misery and the whole vast field of God's mercies.

It recalls that beautiful canticle of the Psalms, which
at each verse repeats : Quoniam in ceternum miseri-
cordia ejus! — I shall indeed need eternity to sing of
all Thy mercies !

The truly humble soul is not afraid to look at the
gifts of God in herself, and the magnificat which
escapes her lips proceeds from two points of view that
harmonise and complete each other.

The sight of what is good in ourselves is only
dangerous when it remains isolated from its counter
part ; it is most useful when united with the realisation
of God's goodness as the only source of ours.

The important thing, then, is that we should keep
in view the whole truth.

Shallowness, self-complacence, and above all praise,
may insidiously draw the soul away from this com
plete view — and they are in this respect its worst
enemies.

FOURTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE XXV

ON HUMILITY IN OUR RELATIONS WITH OUR
NEIGHBOUR

First point : Towards superiors.
Second point : Towards equals.
Third point : Towards inferiors.

Evening Preparation. — There is doubtless a
humility of a higher nature than that we must show
to our neighbour, for this has its limits.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 209

On the other hand, there is no more virtuous
humility when it costs something, as it usually does,
and is active in face of interior rebellion and distaste.
It is the most powerful support of our other virtues,
for only a humble soul is always gentle and patient,
entirely just and reasonable, and it alone can soften
the heart, ours as well as our brother's.

All hardness, all want of consideration, all egotism,
show that humility is lacking.

God has given us a sign by which we may know
whether we love it : it is love towards those who
would naturally inspire us with indifference or
aversion. This love is synonymous with humility. It
is easy to humble ourselves before God, provided that
we have the faith; but to be humble towards our
neighbour, whoever he may be, is almost heroic. By
this touchstone we may recognise the true virtue of
humility.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace to understand these
duties in their full perfection, and to make special
resolutions accordingly, since this meditation is of an
extremely practical character.

I. Towards superiors. — If we are truly humble with
God, we shall be so with our superiors, for we shall see
and shall respect in them the imprint of the Divine
Majesty. Their sacred character as the representa
tives of God will so transform them in our eyes that
we shall not notice their individual imperfections ; we
shall not allow our thoughts to dwell on the defects
that make their superiority burdensome and even
intolerable to us, according to human views ; our whole

210 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

bearing towards them will be invested with the spirit
of interior and filial submission.

II. Towards our equals. — The soul that lives in a
constant recollection of the greatness of God and of her
own insignificance will place herself on a footing of
equality with all ; to her, her equals will always be in
some ways her superiors, and from the bottom of her
heart she will honour their relative superiority.

She has a wonderful instinct in discovering the
natural and spiritual advantages of her equals, and
before these she is content to bow; their talents, merits,
and qualities are so many titles to her respect, and
authorise her in effacing herself.

She loves to take the lowest place among her equals,
and is never wanting in good reasons for possessing
herself of it. Very far from entering into rivalry with
anyone, she is always disposed to give way, to defer
to others, falling in with their judgment, their tastes,
and their wishes.

Would to God that everyone was animated by this
spirit in their human relationships.

What perfect unity, what delicate charity would
reign among men if they realised the wish of S. Paul :
In humilitate superior es sibi invicem arbitr antes! —
" Let each esteem others better than themselves."

III. Towards inferiors. — He who sees himself in a
true light will not attribute to himself any superiority
over others ; in this sense he considers that he has no
inferiors.

" Think not that thou hast made any progress
unless thou feelest thyself lowrer than all," says the
author of the " Imitation."

If he must exercise authority on God's behalf, the

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 211

humble man will not lose sight of his own nothing
ness ; he will not forget it for a moment.

By his solicitude, his devotion, and his gentleness,
he will make himself the servant of all.

When he renders to them the services of his office,
he fulfils with joy the least exalted functions; he
abases himself interiorly before them, he kneels in
spirit at their feet after the example of the Divine
Master, Who came not to be ministered unto but to
minister. There is nothing imperious nor hard,
nothing exacting, in his manner of issuing his com
mands. "He that will be first among you shall be
your servant."

He puts himself in the place of his subordinates in
order that he may understand their difficulties and
trials, and know how to meet and allay them. He
seeks to obtain a spontaneous obedience by asking it
in the name of the good God.

He never publicly reproves them, nor does so in
private in such a way as to offend their suscepti
bilities. He seeks to prevail over the untractable by
an invincible patience.

Oh ! if we were truly humble, what a power we
should have over souls ! Greatness may inspire fear,
talents admiration; but simplicity and modesty set
others at their ease; attract and subjugate them, for
they cannot help recognising the living likeness to
Him Who was meekness and humility incarnate.

NOTE. — During the fifth week we shall consider the love of
our neighbours from a much wider point of view.

212 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

FIFTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE XXVI

ON THE CULTIVATION OF EXTERIOR HUMILITY

First point : To enclose ourselves in humility.
Second point : To saturate ourselves in humility.
Third point : To exhale humility.

Evening Preparation. — " Exterior acts of humility,"
said S. Francis of Sales, "are not humility, but they
are very useful : they are the rind of the virtue, pre
serving the fruit."

Superficial minds do not sufficiently take into
account the influence that the physical exercises over
the moral ; humility may find in the exterior practices
prompted by her a reflex influence that aids her
development.

It appears that things enter into us by the senses,
and leave behind them their own peculiar impression.
Up to now I may have passed disdainfully over this
kind of formative influence.

It is, however, the most useful and not less powerful
aid that is within my reach. The ship's rudder, though
insignificant in size, is nevertheless master of the
course. A humble attitude steadily maintained may
take us very far along the course of virtue.

Besides this, if there is real interior humility, an
exterior that is not humble is in contradiction to it —
or rather, that virtue is suspect that does not exhibit
its influence in all the natural exterior functions.
Every living principle creates harmony.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 213

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace to accustom myself to
the frequent use of some special practice.

I. To enclose ourselves in humility. — Poor apart
ments, especially those that are our own. Modest
dress, as modest as possible. For our society the less
wealthy for preference, the less highly placed, etc.

A poor apartment, under garments very poor and
very much repaired, etc., all such marks of indigency,
impress us and incline us to humility. A rich apart
ment, relatively costly clothing, have the contrary
effect.

These effects are produced of themselves, and they
are irresistible. An action good or bad depends on
our will, but our impressions depend on things.

It is wise, then, to surround ourselves with every
thing that will preserve in us impressions of humility.
All that produces this result may be used to the same
end. We should be careful to let our eyes rest upon
what is poor around us, to love it, to make ourselves
happy in it, to repeat to ourselves that that is exactly
what suits us, that we do not deserve as much. Let us
often take upon our lips these words : O God, cause
the humility of these things to enter into my heart.

II. To saturate ourselves with humility. — Having
settled its choice on the objects that surround us, this
virtue becomes ambitious to go farther. Our exterior
will be its next conquest; it receives its law, takes its
impress, and becomes impregnated with its gentle
influence. In its turn it will pay its tribute to interior
humility by still further increasing it.

It is, in fact, the application of the principle of co-

214 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

relation between the physical and moral. A prudent
restraint that moderates quickness of movement and
ease of position, the domineering voice and freedom of
look, communicates to the soul the sentiment of
humility. Since it acts under its orders, such restraint
is even a positive act of the virtue, and to render its
influence more powerful we may explicitly say to
ourselves : " I have no right to give myself so much
liberty." The force of exercise is then added to that
of impression.

A really humble person has very definite character
istics, a mixture of candour, deference, and amiability.
There is no affectation ; his pose, gait, tone of voice,
look, are all stamped with humility ; and the face sums
up in its expression this harmonious whole.

A face that has become gentle and humble is such a
help to us, it is an edification to others, and a great
power in our action upon souls.

The reflection of humility instinctively attracts.

Oh ! could I thus saturate myself with humility !
Would that I might become unable to do a single
external action that did not exhale a perfume from
within !

III. To exhale humility. — A garment impregnated
with a perfume sheds it all around; a humility that
fills the heart and is reflected in the exterior is exhaled
by every gesture, every action, every word. This
virtue passes from the heart where it dwells to the
exterior that it governs, showing itself there and
radiating forth a beautiful light and warmth.

Look at this humble person. She speaks to others,
even to the least, with tokens of a respect that she
never departs from, and should she change her manner

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 215

and make it less deferential, it is only from wise and
charitable motives.

It seems natural to her to choose whatever is least,
to regulate her steps to others, to allow them to lead
the conversation, to appear contented with everything
and everyone. Not speaking of herself, effacing herself
as much as possible, she will not be brilliant in society,
and yet it is a strange fact that she will diffuse an
ineffable charm.

In her presence we breathe a perfume so real that we
scarcely notice it, yet so strong that we are penetrated
by it. God often permits that those who have enjoyed
it do not dream of the little hidden violet that has
given it, and she suspects it least of all.

But how virtue grows by these abasements ! She
hides herself, and that is much; she makes a holy
exercise of it and it grows ; each time respect is shown,
each time silence is kept, each time disputes are
avoided, the force of habit has increased, and the satis
faction of God is augmented.

O Lord, pride too often breathes in my words, my
eagerness, my want of consideration, my arguments,
my desire to appear, and, alas ! even in my sadness.

O Jesus, so meek and so amiable by virtue of Thy
humility, give me that which I can never give myself.

RESOLUTION. — O my God, I desire that everything
in me may help me to become humble. I desire that
everything in me shall prove it to Thee — everything,
even the tone of my voice and the slightest smile.

216 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

SIXTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE XXVII

ON THE LOVE OF CONTEMPT

First point : The nature of this sentiment.
Second point : Its motives.
Third point : Its cultivation.
Fourth point : Its justification.

Evening Preparation. — Shall I undertake this
meditation that seems so little meant for me? To
raise myself to the love of contempt — I, who do not
know how to accept inevitable trials ! To exclaim in
face of humiliation that it is good ; and in some sort
even to thank those by whom it comes ? To choose it
in preference when it is wise to do so ? Why ! this
would be a world turned upside down, and nothing
short of a miracle could thus transform me !

Yet, my Jesus, in Thy humiliations, perhaps Thou
dost call me to share Thy bitterness and honour !
Have I not told Thee a thousand times that I wish to
be near Thee, as near as possible ? Have I not asked
Thee to give me a heart like Thine ? Shall I allow
Thee to bear alone those degradations that Thou hast
taken upon Thyself for my sake ?

At least I cannot refuse to direct my thoughts
thither. The contemplation of Thy profound humility
will doubtless arouse in me some aspirations. There
is no greater stimulus than beauty, it stirs our noblest
feelings, and some souls there are who remain at a
standstill in the way of humility, until one day the
Ideal is revealed to them.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 217

The considerations that follow are of an educative
character. They pertain to the category of counsels,
and set before us heights that our feet will never
attain; but even so, they cannot fail to influence us
profoundly.

Some ideas will spring from them, some aspirations
arise, some efforts be inaugurated, and our conscious
ness of their truth will powerfully tend to the elevation
of our practical life.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE, — To ask grace to detach myself from
human points of view ; to admire what I cannot attain,
and at least to conceive a sincere desire of it.

I. The nature of this sentiment. — Sincere self-con
tempt already takes us far upon the road of humility,
but, of itself, it will not take us all the way.

It certainly supposes very exalted views of faith and
a courageous logic, but its effect is limited by the fact
that we remain the sole spectators of our unworthiness,
and the confession of our lips falls only upon our
own ears !

The love of contempt goes much farther, for it
desires contempt in broad daylight, contempt that
may be read on the faces of others. It is no longer
only in our own sight that we are abased.

We pass from the region of vague ideas to positive
fact. An idea is like the cloud that floats peacefully
in high heaven ; fact is the storm that breaks over us
and buffets us.

Self-contempt affects only one of the two propensi
ties that are the bases of our pride : self-esteem ; the
love of contempt immolates besides the strong desire

2i 8 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

we have for the esteem_of others. There are two
enemies to fight, two wounds to suffer at the same time.

Since this strange love is the supreme act of humility
it is naturally its most certain proof. In vain we
plunge ourselves in self-contempt, we cannot be sure of
a perfect humility until we are faced with the contempt
of others. This alone sets all our pride on edge, all
our nerves tingling, and in order to love such a trial
humility must, so to speak, have passed into our very
blood.

If we rebel, if in spite of our acceptance, our temper
breaks out, we may conclude, not that we have no
humility, but that it is still imperfect; the virtuous
inclination is not sufficiently deeply rooted in our
nature to transform its impressions; but it is suffi
ciently master of the will to conquer them, and if it is
sincere at least to disown them. A certain disturbance
is inseparable from this as yet imperfect state.

If, on the other hand, humiliation arouses nothing
violent in nature, then nature is subdued. Humility
has firmly established its dominion, and under this
dominion an imperturbable peace reigns.

If this peace is accompanied by inner sweetness and
utters itself in accents of joy, the virtue is perfect. It
goes out to meet humiliation; it embraces it as a
friend; it is pleased with the abasements it brings,
transforming their bitterness by love. Such effects
betoken complete abandonment to the virtue; the
whole soul belongs to it even in its unplumbed depths
of sensibility, even in those instinctive movements that
only obey long habit.

Certain authors discern two degrees in this humility.
The first the desire for contempt, and the second

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 219

the full acceptance of it. In this they confuse
degree and priority; naturally the desire must come
first, and the act follows; but the desire may be as
perfect as the act. The act has the advantage of being
the proof, but the proof of a sentiment is not its
measure.

This measure is only to be found in stability of
habit, in intensity of desire, and lastly, in elevation of
sentiment.

Be reassured, then, holy souls who are spared actual
humiliations; it still remains to you to desire them.
In this way you may attain the loftiest heights. Envy,
if you will, the victims who give their God this external
sign of their complete abnegation, who show Him
this speaking likeness to His Son; but recollect that
God reads hearts, and that in His eyes, desires are
true actions, as real, as beautiful, as meritorious, and
as transforming as external ones, and that they have
indeed the advantage of being able to be more
numerous. The interior world is so vast, the life that
animates it so intense, the prodigies that fill it are so
astounding ! It is the secret garden where God takes
His pleasure; it is a blossoming spring where every
colour is displayed and every perfume reserved for
Him alone.

O you who understand and feel these things, turn
your hopes towards desire, the wonderful creative
power, and make it the principle of an interior life
whose activity is ever on the increase,

In the order of virtue, as we have just seen, act and
desire are identical, but if desire has the advantage of
being able to repeat itself more frequently, acts have
on their side that of provoking a more vigorous

220 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

reaction. External humiliation touches our senses and
obtrudes itself violently upon our soul. Against such
an assault virtue needs to call up all its forces, and the
very intensity of the battle provoked leads to a more
perfect and decisive victory.

II. Motives for this sentiment. — The love of
contempt is the result of a clear perception of our
weakness, and also of a sad recollection of our faults.
A sense of the truth awakens a sense of what is just.

" I am contemptible ; I deserve contempt ; I ought
to love contempt."

Great sincerity and nobility of soul may give rise to
this disposition. It is often accompanied by the
ambition to reinstate ourselves and to make reparation.
" Humiliation will be my redeeming pledge, and I
desire it with all my heart ! "

The love of contempt, however, seldom originates
entirely from such a disposition. It is often born of
Divine love, and indeed without great love such rigour
against self is scarcely conceivable.

Divine love tends to self-humiliation, for love can
not take its share in having wounded God without
keen suffering for having done so, and an avenging
humility becomes a solace to it; love admires the
Divine beauty, and in face of its splendour blushes at
the sight of its own meanness, and would fain fly and
hide itself. Humiliation then serves it as a refuge.

From its lowly place it sees Divine greatness uniting
Itself with its insignificance and allowing Itself to be
loved by it !

Without being strangers to such sentiments, the
greater number of the faithful arrive at a love of
contempt by a simple love of the Divine Saviour.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 221

Let a loving soul attach herself to His footsteps;
let her give herself to Him to follow Him whitherso
ever He goes ; let her love Him so much that she cannot
allow Him to suffer a single humiliation alone ; let her
desire to take His place, and be ready to bear every
thing to spare Him an affront or to console Him for it ;
and she will display a humility that excels itself,
borrowing from friendship its nobility, its warmth, its
ingenuity in love, its fidelity unto death, and its
triumphant dominion.

Jesus suffers humiliation and I embrace it. Like
Him I desire it, with Him I delight in it. The silence
I keep and that condemns me, He kept ; the ingratitude
that forsakes me, He too suffered, even to betrayal.

O sweet thought ! When Jesus, just before facing
the worst outrages, called to His aid the prayers of
the Apostles and the succour of the angels, He foresaw
a wonderful train of consoling spirits hurrying to Him
from afar. I was one of them, my Jesus, offering to
Thy dry lips the comforting chalice of my own
humiliations beloved for Thy sake, and in Thine
agony of thirst Thou didst deign to drink it, sending
me across the distant years a " Thank you " from Thy
pallid lips.

Then, shall I not welcome these humiliations, shall
I not long for those blessed opportunities of being
present at Calvary ?

They are indeed Thine, O Jesus, these humiliations
of my poor life, since they are offered to Thee and
Thou hast accepted them; but they are Thine for a
more intimate reason.

The resignation that welcomes them, the desire that
invites them, arise from dispositions not created by

222 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

nature but by grace, and grace is wholly Thine action,
O Jesus. When I love an abasement, a slight, it is
Thou Who lovest it in me. I lend Thee my will and
my heart, and Thou dost use them as on earth Thou
didst use Thine own Will and Heart. What Thou
didst when on earth, Thou dost continue to do by
Thy Divine power in me. What can be more Divine
than this gracious mingling of our two lives ?

What, then, should not be my joy in enriching Thee
with humiliations that Thou dost not suffer, and in
seeing myself, an insignificant being, honoured to the
point of prolonging and increasing Thy life ?

In the radiance of these revelations contempt is so
transformed, and appears so beautiful, that my whole
heart turns towards it with delight and longing.

O Holy Spirit, grant me, I beseech Thee, a perfect
knowledge of these things; nil me with a love that
opens its arms to them, and so unite me to Thyself,
O Jesus despised, that I may be filled with the
thoughts that inspired Thy life and that at this time
Thou hast come to bring me.

III. Cultivation of this sentiment. — Oh ! you who
do not understand such sentiments, remember that
they are supernatural, out of our reach, and only
taught by God. We praise Thee, O Father, that Thou
hast revealed them to the poor and humble, and hast
hidden them from the proud who trust in their own
lights !

In the measure of our grace let us make ourselves
small and humble before God, small and humble before
those about us, for these are the first steps to the
heights.

And you, timid souls, who admire these noble

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 223

dispostions without aspiring to them, say not, " It
is too high and too difficult." Too high for your
actual stature, it is true ; but you have not yet attained
your full height. Too difficult for your present powers,
that is also true ; but you must know that with exercise
our powers develop in a marvellous way, and that the
action of God, united with ours, eliminates impossi
bility.

Will you give in to the natural cowardice that
believes admiration of virtue is enough? It is not
enough. Admiration should inspire and awaken
desire in us, and give us ardour in the pursuit of the
ideal that is set before us.

If now you behold a glimmer of dawn in the
heavens set out in certain hope, graduate your steps ;
commence by accepting with a more loving heart the
humiliations that you cannot escape, do not seek
extreme means to spare yourself from them ; put away
all defiance ; force yourself sometimes to say " Thank
You " to Gtod ; be gentle towards those who have
humiliated you, and at least pray for them.

In the measure that we raise ourselves, we enter a
more luminous region; the mystery of humiliation
begins to yield up some of its secrets, an invisible and
Almighty Hand helps us to surmount obstacles, and
in fatherly fashion raises us when we fall.

To ask for humiliations is not contrary to self-
distrust. The love that is ambitious to follow Jesus so
far counts wholly upon His grace. On the other hand,
not to ask but to await humiliation with secret desire
is perhaps as perfect, when the delicacy of a great love
prompts us to leave to Jesus the care of dispensing it
at His own good pleasure. All the generosity of the

224 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

soul seems, then, to gather itself up in readiness for
the first signal. This is the filial attention that S.
Francis of Sales speaks of as being most worthy of
praise.

IV. Justification of this sentiment. — An objection
is here presented, but more expressly, that has already
been raised, and can be soon disposed of. Is not such
a sentiment contrary to all our personal instincts, to
the universal feeling of mankind, and even to reason
itself ? Contrary to our instincts ? Obviously so. To
the feelings of men ? It is true. To reason ? Well,
yes again, if reason is left to its own resources.

Reason is restricted, its natural range is extremely
limited, but the dogmas of faith extend it infinitely.

In their larger light reason, better informed, draws
new conclusions.

Now these new conclusions create a new ideal
entirely foreign to human nature. Christian humility,
by its essential exigencies, is already a supernatural
virtue ; but it becomes an eminent virtue in the super
natural order when it urges us to the love of contempt.
And though such a love is only of counsel, it alone
establishes us in that perfect state which allows God,
our first principle, full liberty of action in our souls.

RESOLUTION. — To humiliate ourselves, seeing our
selves so far from such perfection. To make an
offering of ourselves. To seek by greater love to
understand and to experience.

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 225

REMARKS ON THE LOVE OF OUR OWN
ABJECTION

S. Francis of Sales has treated of this subject with
his usual wisdom, and we should be satisfied to go
back to his luminous pages if we had not so often been
confronted with this question : " Well, what are we to
understand by our own abjection ?"

All that we can do here is to set forth the doctrine of
the great Saint in a more strictly methodical manner.

I. At the outset we may ask, " What is meant by an
abjection ?" An abjection is anything that humiliates
us either in our own eyes or in the eyes of others ; our
inferiorities of every sort, of fortune, of position, of
knowledge, of virtue ; our defects, especially those that
are most apparent; our discovered blunders; our
public failures. Among more interior things, our
degrading temptations, our cowardly concessions, our
faults, and above all our relapses.

Exterior abjection, observe, is less in fact than in
opinion. A thing is only humiliating because it is-
judged to be so, and according to the circumstances
the same action may be either our glory or our shame.

" Look," said S. Francis of Sales, " at that good and
devoted Capuchin, all in rags and starved with cold.
Everyone honours his torn habit, and has compassion
on his suffering ; but if a poor artisan or a poor young
girl appears in this state, they are despised, mocked
at, and the same poverty in them is considered abject.
A religious receives in silence a sharp reproof from a
superior, or a child from its father, and this is called

15

226 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

obedience and goodness ; but if a person in the world
suffers as much from someone for the love of God, it is
called mean-spirited and cowardly. One man has a
cancer on his arm, and another on his face. The one
hides it and has only the evil; but the other cannot
hide it, and has scorn and humiliation with the evil."

There are abject virtues and honourable virtues.
Patience, gentleness, simplicity, humility, are virtues
that are considered base and abject in the eyes of the
world, while savoir-faire, generosity, and liberality are
highly esteemed. Again, in the practice of the same
virtue, some acts are despised and others honoured.
To give alms and to pardon our enemies are two acts
of charity — there is no one who does not praise the
first, while the second is almost universally disdained.

Certain accidents cover us with shame. " We fall in
the street, and besides the injury we may receive we
also have the embarrassment of having fallen."

" It is the same with faults that are followed by
no other effects than the sole one of humiliation.
Humility does not require us to commit such faults
purposely, but when we have committed them, she asks
us not to disquiet ourselves. Such faults are certain
impolitenesses, inadvertences, and other like blunders.
Prudence and civility, indeed, demand that we should
refrain from them as far as possible; but when they
have escaped us, holy humility desires us to accept all
the abjection of them. I will say even more : if I have
allowed myself, in anger or from any other motive, to
say unkind or inconvenient words, I shall at once
reproach myself roundly ; I shall be truly penitent, and
shall do my utmost to repair the fault ; but at the same
time I will accept the abjection that it may bring upon

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 22;

me, and if it is possible to separate one from the other,
I will regret the sin most bitterly, but I will keep the
abjection of it in my heart and bear it with humble
patience."

II. What is the love of abjection ? Abjection cer
tainly cannot be loved for its own sake. " This would
be meanness of spirit or cowardliness of heart." It is
the love of abjection as a just and good thing.

Humility alone can show it to us in this light,
because sht drives out the prejudices of pride; she
alone gives the inclination towards what justly abases
us, because she is virtue.

" Humility is a true knowledge of our abject con
dition, and the disposition that leads us to acknow
ledge it. Now, perfect humility consists not only in
recognising our state, but in loving it and in delighting
ourselves in it, in view of the glory we owe to God
and the esteem we should feel for our neighbour over
ourselves " (S. Francis of Sales).

III. Why does humility show a particular affection
for the abjection that arises from circumstances ? For
this lofty and little-considered reason : that we enter
thus into God's plan, that good and wise plan that is
preferable to one of our own choice. This is not the
judgment of men, who reserve their esteem for humilia
tions that are self-imposed. The mistake arises from
the fact that in these we see more ostensibly the
generosity that seeks them. We do not realise that an
equal generosity is needed to welcome them.

Now, if love is equal in both cases, accepted humilia
tion has the higher origin, for it comes from God.

It offers surer guarantees, since it is chosen by
infallible wisdom. It gives little scope for self-love,

228 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

for it hides itself under the veil of necessity. A lofty
and tranquil humility finds an immense joy in finding
itself thus brought into God's plan, and without seeing
the extent of it she is assured beforehand that it is
beautiful and fatherly.

SEVENTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE XXVIII

SOME PRECAUTIONS

First point : The care that God takes of our humility.
Second point : Our correspondence with this Divine care.

Evening Preparation. — In this meditation we shall
study the principal reason for the love of abjection;
we shall see why Providence gives it so large a place
in His education of the finest souls. Abjection is a
preservative and a remedy for their humility; it
dissipates the fumes of self-love that arise from our
natural pride; and at the same time, by its exterior
humiliation it counterbalances, in the eyes of men, the
dangerous admiration with which they surround
virtue.

It is a preservative, but it is something else besides —
it is a stimulus. To poor human nature, prone to fall
asleep, sensible wounds are necessary, like the spur to
the flanks of the courser, to awaken its ardour.

Under these blows the need of God is felt more
keenly and prayer becomes more fervent.

This is a benefit common to it with sorrow, with this
difference, that it leaves behind it a feeling of abase-

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 229

ment This feeling, when it is deep and peaceful,
keeps the heart softened towards God, and especially
gentle towards our neighbour.

It gives to the physiognomy itself something kind
and deferent, that is the reflection of true humility.

Let us add that, by the entire detachment that it
brings about, the love of abjection gives complete
liberty to the soul; it is the strong beating of the
wings that frees it from the earth's law of gravity.
Hereafter the aerial way to the heights is open to its
flight.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace to see God and His
goodness in all that humiliates me.

I. The care that God takes of our humility. —
Humility is so needful to us that God permits humilia
tion to befall us in everything and everywhere.

Our qualities are accompanied by defects, and
usually we have the defects of our qualities. But if
they are perfect they may be misunderstood, and may
draw down upon us malice and envy.

O my God, how kind Thou art in Thy wisdom !

We wish to be good, but even this wish is often
accompanied by imperfection rendering it either over-
eager or discouraged. Sometimes imprudence or
awkwardness nullifies it.

Should we strive to arouse indignation against our
selves ? No, it is all for my good.

O my God, how kind Thou art in Thy wisdom !

Sometimes what we do with the best intentions is
disputed, thwarted, and spoilt, and the failure is
attributed to us. O my God, still and always, how
kind Thou art in Thy wisdom !

23o THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Our interior life is also full of humiliations; cold
ness and dryness in our prayers, depression in our
work, hopeless insensibility, disgust with everything.
Such is the lot of some souls well beloved of God. In
their distress they cry: "Why, O Father, why?"
And He replies : " My child, understand that thou art
nothing and canst do nothing. This experimental
knowledge is worth more than years of consolations.
Plunge thy roots into the depths of thy nothingness.
Weary of thyself, turn thine eyes to Me." I thank
Thee, O Father, I thank Thee !

But why these temptations that menace the very
life of my soul ? Why these base calculations that I
do not wish ? Why these ignominious images that
flout my will, but that my nature relishes ? Virtus in
infirmitate perficitur — "All this is to make thee
humble." O Father, grant at least that I may never
offend Thee !

Alas ! alas ! there must at times be something more,
our pride is so great that there must be faults.
God reluctantly withdraws His arms and we fall.
Why ? O my God, why ? Jesus to heal the blind
man, mingled clay with His spittle. The proud can
only be cured by humiliation; for certain kinds of
blindness clay must be used. Thanks, O my God, for
this stern grace. But I pray Thee that this extreme
remedy may work my cure.

II. Our correspondence with this Divine care. —
After these considerations let us firmly resolve to
correspond with this operation of the Divine wisdom.

Our first duty is to discover it by studying the
causes of humiliation that it has deigned to place
within us and around us. There are many, and we

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 231

must do our best to be sensible of them. If I am not
impressionable, this grace will be lost, this means will
be thrown away. God will find it necessary to drive
home the hard lesson in another way. We must
beware of the ruses of self-love. It is so apt to blind us
to our defects, and so skilful in avoiding exterior
humiliation. Let us only excuse ourselves when God
requires it.

Let us leave upon our frail virtue the thorns that
protect it.

Let us compel ourselves to love the humiliation of
these things. To love abjection is truly to love
humility, and to nourish it substantially.

To love humility without loving abjection would be
to deceive ourselves.

Abjection is to have many apparent defects, it is to
fail, to see ourselves incapable, to be tempted by
degrading things : and to love abjection is to be
content with all this, sin excepted. It is to cultivate a
constant recollection of it.

O wisdom of my God, at last I catch a glimpse of
you in the precautions you have taken to keep me
humble. Bonum mihi quia humiliasti me — " It was for
my good and I did not know it."

And to what have I not forced God's wisdom by
my blindness ? How do I stand even now ? Have I
any love for the abjections designed to aid me ?

What a glorious vision will meet our eyes when at
the close of life the wisdom of our Father in safe
guarding our humility will be revealed !

All these Whys that perplex us when we are faced
with the contradictions that even the Saints them
selves suffered will then be explained.

232 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Then our clinging imperfections, our strange
failures, our faults themselves, in a word, all those
woeful miseries that affright us now, will extort from
us cries of admiration. Wisdom will then be seen in
everything, and will be justified of herself.

The ignorant, seeing a gardener place thorns round
a delicate plant, might exclaim : " How ugly that
looks !" Thus do we criticise the celestial Gardener !

O my God, how kind Thou art in Thy wisdom !

RESOLUTION.— To seek the humiliation that is most
painful to me ; to receive it from the hand of God ; to
set myself to be content with it.

PRUDENCE IN HUMILITY

Several passages in this book have already dealt
with the action of humility on prudence. We have
seen how it dissipates the illusions which obscure our
judgment, the excessive confidence in self that will not
admit any self-doubt nor advice; how it calms the
eagerness that will not wait to consider the best means,
and softens the obstinacy that aggravates error or
failure. To-day we shall see prudence playing an
analogous role with regard to humility, communicat
ing to it that spirit of discernment and moderation
without which it may go sadly astray.

We shall not concern ourselves with the merely
human prudence that, in its ignorance, would confine
humility within its own narrow limits, but with that
supernatural prudence that derives its standards from
revealed truth, and has always in view the greater

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 233

glory of God; that prudence whose scope is as wide
as the example of the Saviour, and as far reaching as
goodness itself.

To confine humility to a precise mean that would
exclude the least as well as the greatest actions would
be to reduce it to mediocrity. The wise mean that
reason approves is that which forbids either excess or
carefulness, for neither is a virtue. Perfect virtue, the
virtue of Jesus, is to be found between the two
extremes, and extends even to heroism.

Humility would not be a virtue if it lessened us.
All virtue tends to perfect our being, for perfection
consists in coming close to God, Who is the All-
Being, and deriving from Him the fullest possible life.
This is true even of physical qualities, is still more so
in the development of intellectual qualities, and is
above all true of the moral qualities in which virtue
dwells.

But what, then, becomes of the doctrine of self-
effacement, abjection, and love of contempt, that has
been the subject of the principal preceding medita
tions ? Our ideas of virtue and humility seem to
contradict each other here, virtue tending to
aggrandise us, and humility unremittingly to abase us.

No, humility does not abase and lessen us. A self-
effacing humility does not modify what we really are,
but only what we seem to be; it does not limit our
value, but our pretensions.

Abject humility, instead of putting great things far
from us, shows them to us as the desirable reward of
the trials under which we groan.

As for the love of scorn, by teaching us to blush at
nothing, it tempers our souls. All these phases of

234 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

humility only insure to virtue its beauty by destroying
in it all impure alloy, and its liberty by detaching it
from all self-obsession.

The part of prudence is precisely to confirm and
maintain this order, to counter false ideas and ill-
considered efforts.

Her part is to guide the movement of our acts of
humility; to bring into play, according to circum
stances, such and such forms of the virtue, and so to
moderate its play that nature is kept in equilibrium
and its attractions better discerned.

I. Prudence in action. — Like all the other virtues,
humility must be brought under the control of
prudence ; it cannot take a step without its consent, it
can never lawfully resist its orders. Of itself it might
be moved to undignified manifestations or feeble
hesitancy ; it is indeed a characteristic of every attrac
tion to carry us to the limits of its impulse, and its
usual weakness to see only its own particular aim.

Prudence takes a wider view ; she does not allow the
neglect of a useful action simply because it happens to
be conspicuous; she is opposed to everything that
diminishes our personality, lowers our moral worth,
and arrests the development of good.

We must not represent her as austere and dry. She
has a sense of beauty as well as a sense of justice.
She bids us repel all that is ugly as something that is
lowering. Moral ugliness is incompatible with virtue,
it is not the work of God and cannot be useful to man.
It intrinsically degrades those on whom it is imposed,
and Heaven cannot welcome it in any form. For this
reason it is that prudence pitilessly denies to humility
every gesture and expression that savours of the

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 235

ridiculous; this is why she preserves it from all, even
interior deformity. She wishes it to be frank and
serene; she makes it unselfish and compliant, aban
doned to the will of God, and desirous above all of
His greater glory.

Our own initiative is not destroyed, far from it;
put in its rightful place, sustained in its part, it seeks
with all its might to accomplish the Divine Will that
creates a host of secondary initiatives.

She does not in the least require that we should
abdicate our rights, but she prevents us from pressing
them too far. She does not paralyse our activity, but
she subordinates it.

I am inclined to effacement, humiliation, contempt,
it is the particular attraction that humility presents to
me ; but before every demand of a superior will, assign
ing to me a certain task or requiring from me co
operation, I restrain myself submissively, and lend to
it the full strength of all my faculties and virtue. The
goal is more clearly discerned, and the means of
attaining it better chosen, for I am not blinded by the
unruly desire for self-esteem.

To restrain the exercise of humility is not to
decrease it. Certain acts, words, and abasements may
be forbidden, but the inclination and the love that
prompt them only grow by the suppression of desire
and the effort that it costs. Nothing can hinder it
from singing within us its constant hymn of admira
tion, or from permeating our whole moral life with an
influence that preserves and charms.

Go forward, then, steadfastly, O souls smitten with
humility ! If the exercise of the virtue has its limits,
the love of it has none, and virtue lies in this love ; the

236 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

sentiments of the heart are at the same time meritorious
acts and a useful preparation.

And you, less generous souls, act, act ! Mistrust the
doubts that perhaps arise from timidity. Before turn
ing away from any humiliation, ask yourself what
conscience requires of you, and if you wish to be
perfect incline to what is most humiliating, and do
not give in except for fear of a fault.

We ought, however, to take account of our present
strength; in exceeding our courage we lessen it, in
exceeding His grace we tempt God.

In ordinary actions we may show a humility that is
suitable to all ; and each act faithfully performed helps
to form habit. For the rest, the future is before us.
Let us seek, even in the humiliation of not being
humble, the desire to become so.

II. Prudence determines the kind of humility that
is expedient. — Prudence is not content to encourage
or maintain humility in the actions of the moment,
but, carrying her counsels farther, she determines
the kind of humility to be adopted as suitable
to the position of each individual. There is
one type of humility for a religious, another for a
woman of the world, or the mother of a family
responsible for a numerous household; another for a
political man or a soldier. This is obvious. Every
one will acknowledge that gestures and manner,
words and decisions, must take a different form
according to circumstances, but what is less under
stood is that all these exterior acts may at all times
bear the same stamp. Some will say that forms suit
able for public use by one in authority may be dropped
in private. Is it not more perfect to exercise exterior

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 237

humility whenever circumstances do not compel its
restraint ?

Prudence sees farther : she knows that an attitude
is not easily adopted, and that it loses force unless it is
a matter of habit; this is why she counsels the
exclusion of every mode of life that interrupts it.
Even our very thoughts and feelings must all be
brought into unison. Virtue is harmony, and this
harmony is the rtsult of a common life. Every interior
act leaves its mark; its influence and character pass
into the exterior appearance ; we see its features as we
see in children the features of those of whom they are
the offspring.

There is peril in this, but it is too evident to escape
the experienced eyes of prudence and the sagacity of
her means of preservation. Her aim is intrinsically to
strengthen virtue. To persons who have to appear and
to command, she proposes a deep and strong humility ;
she counsels every practice that will abase them in the
eyes of God and themselves, but she forbids anything
that might tend to a diminution of prestige or
authority.

Let such be reassured ; to the grace according with
their state and which will not be wanting, God may
add the grace of real humiliations which they are for
bidden to seek. Coming from Him, they will concur
with His designs and should cause no disturbance.
Rather they should be welcomed as a providential
help against pride, regarded as a happy compensation,
loved with the love that is felt for humility, and given
as much scope as prudence will allow.

III. Prudence moderating the exercise of humility
in order to -preserve equilibrium. — What prudence

238 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

prescribes as a safeguard in certain circumstances, she
also prescribes to certain natures with a view to give
them balance.

Some people are always doubtful of themselves, of
their capacity and their success. Hesitation paralyses
their initiative or makes it painful.

Too much self-confidence is a vice, but so also is
excessive self -mistrust ; one is not less disastrous than
the other. The latter fills the soul with anxiety and
deforms it, feebleness creeps into every action and
spoils its efficacy.

It may be said that virtue after all consists in a
right appreciation of things and in goodwill, but we
forget that it consists rather in the dispositions of our
nature. Our nature is the foundation of all our actions,
the foundation that sustains them ; it is in it that habits
are established. We cannot neglect this permanent
force with impunity. The consciousness of duty may
demand energetic conduct, but only a nature fully
prepared can impose it and bear the burden of it with
out flinching.

A soul in which there is too great a distrust of self
would be mistaken in cultivating the sense of its own
weakness, or to incline too much to self-depreciation
before others, especially if she has a mission to fulfil.
Let her keep herself free from pride and pretension,
let her seek God in all that she does, and to command
only in His name — nothing more. A peaceful humility
will then fill her life, restoring its serenity and sustain
ing it.

But for the rest, let her put resolutely aside the too
lively impression of her deficiencies, her mistakes, her
inferiorities, lest she depress a character already

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 239

wanting in buoyancy; and also because, in the midst
of her alarms, self-love may easily find a place for
itself, for self-love is suffering, and this is the special
menace of such natures.

Those who have charge of such timid souls should
give them confidence in themselves by opportune
marks of approval; by allowing them to act inde
pendently in order to develop their initiative; by
helping them in various ways to make a reputation for
themselves where they live ; by reassuring them, raising
them, and leading them at last to that ease of word
and action which is the result of a sense of God, no
doubt, but also is the just consciousness of their own
powers.

To act thus is to help talent to fructify, instead of
wrapping it up inactive in the shroud of a misplaced
humility.

IV. Prudence respecting a wisely recognised attrac
tion. — We have seen that the Saints for the most part
are bent on self-abasement ; they feel a bitter-sweet joy
in heaping upon themselves the most humiliating
epithets, and find in the frequently renewed sentiment
of their own abject condition the stimulus of their
fervour.

On the other hand, we see extremely generous souls,
who, nevertheless, cannot remain in this frame of mind
and would feel uneasy in it.

Like the Saints, they may have a deep sense of their
unworthiness, but they cultivate the impression of it
less. These souls are often peculiarly pure, evil has
not branded them with its dishonourable marks,
temptation itself has respected their innocence. How
can they be indignant against what they scarcely

240 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

know? In others the delicacy of a refined nature
really suffers at the sight of any stain.

In others, again, the sense of beauty is so developed
that they turn instinctively from all that is ugly or
deformed. Any sort of contact with these things even
in thought seems to give them a sense of having been
touched by some disgrace; their courage suffers and
their flight Godwards is arrested.

Would it be just to condemn such repugnances ?
Would it be wise to do them violence? We do not
think so.

The characters that we have just described warn
prudence that it is her duty to make such providential
dispositions respected.

To such souls she will say : Do not disturb your
selves, it is not essential to virtue to envisage every
thing, it is sufficient to retain what promotes it. What
is most renowned and most excellent is not always
best for certain souls, but rather that which, according
better with their nature, arouses them to the greatest
efforts.

Doubtless motives of abjection carry humility far,
but the motive of " everything in God " opens to con
templative souls horizons not less extensive.

The essential thing is that our humility shall be
practical and generous. Whether it becomes so under
this or that influence matters little. Face to face with
the thought of the Infinite, we feel ourselves so small,
whatever may be the success of our work or the gifts
of our prayer; we cannot exalt ourselves on that
account ; whatever may be the misery of our neighbour,
we can never despise him, we shall show ourselves
always gentle, indulgent, and kind. If humiliation

DIRECTIONS FOR THE HUMBLE SOUL 241

comes, let us look upon it with eyes that are accus
tomed to contemplate Calvary, and we shall open our
arms to it as if to clasp Jesus with His Cross.

Even if we have no particular attraction to humility,
why force it? Humility, like the other virtues,
deserves a general worship, but it has no more right
than its sisters to an altar apart in each temple. Your
nature by its tendencies, sometimes by its defects, your
education, in the formation of your habits of mind,
your life with its relationships, have constituted you
apt rather to one virtue than to another. All this is the
work of Providence, and marks out your way. In this
way you will walk more freely and you will go farther.

Cultivate, then, according to your attraction, purity
of intention, union of thought with God, or gratitude.
Cultivate abnegation, poverty, self-forge tfulness,
devotion to others. Above all, develop Divine love,
with its ardours and its intimacy. Without that you
will wither away like a plant that is transferred to a
soil that does not suit it, while with it you will spread
forth your branches, scatter the perfume of your
flowers, and give to God the fruits that He expects
from you.

16

FIFTH WEEK
TRANSFORMATION

PREPARATION FOR THE FIFTH WEEK

IN the first pages of this book we analysed the two
tendencies that humility has the task of directing :
self- esteem, and desire for the esteem of others. Both,
as we have seen, have for their object the safeguarding
of our personality, the one by the affirmation of our
own worth, the other by courting the esteem that
protects us. This is their role and also their danger.
In themselves, both are blind forces that over-reach
their object, unless truth and justice come to guide
and, if need be, to restrain them. Indeed, pushing too
far the protection of the one, or rather its exaltation,
they would make of ourselves our principle and end —
our principle, as if good came from ourselves and not
from God ; our end, as if we had the right to seek our
own glory rather than His. Such a reversal of the
proper order of things would be not only a serious
injustice and injury, but a grave disorder; and though
some excuse might be found for it in the unconscious
ness that usually accompanies it, it would none the
less produce its evil effects upon our moral life.

Valiant humility will not suffer it, and arming her
self with the word of the Archangel she exclaims in
her turn : Quis ut Deus. Begone, these senseless pre
tensions ! Who is the true Author of all good ? Who
first deserves all praise ? Our proud self thus relegated
to its proper place, God once more takes His throne.
All our virtues recognise Him as their first principle,
and all our actions direct themselves towards Him as

245

246 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

their last end. These two duties are the bases of the
Christian life, the rule of its activity, the condition of
its merit. In making them respected, humility justifies
her title as the foundation and the guardian of the
virtues.

Now we shall go on to see how she deserves another
and more beautiful one, for she is also their crown.

Thus on the last pages of this book humility will be
found ending her career, like a beautiful day, in a glow
of triumph.

This new role proceeds from a new conception. So
far humility has contented herself with the conquest of
the two tendencies, now we shall see how she trans
forms them. In so far as they tended to earth she
restrained them; now we shall see her directing them
heavenwards.

Thus, nothing that God has created will be
destroyed. Self-esteem will become admiration of the
divine in us, and the desire for esteem will seek the
regard of God Himself. These transformed disposi
tions will find a wider field for their activity, they will
be set upon more satisfying objects, their beauty will
lose its alloy; and finally, their action will be carried
from God towards our neighbour by a supernatural
extension.

Let us raise our hopes and our eyes, it is the time to
do so. Defensive humility is firmly established, its
enemies are unmasked and known, peace reigns on
all sides, let us march on to pacific conquests.

The virtue we are in pursuit of is the virtue of the
Saints, and above all of Mary; it will be in a manner
the virtue of our eternity.

Ah ! How I should wish to press on to this new

TRANSFORMATION 24;

world ! How I should desire to give to my common
place soul this wondrous transformation ! Is it
possible that what has been achieved in the souls of
the Saints may, in a limited degree, be achieved in
mine ? What Thou dost in heaven, O God, wilt Thou
not deign to effect on earth ? And what also I shall
do there, may I not begin here ? If one day I shall be
deified in the contemplation of Thy glory face to face,
why should I not be transformed here in contemplat
ing Thee through the flimsy veils of Thy mysterious
creation ?

FIRST MEDITATION
EXERCISE XXIX

THE TRANSFORMATION OF SELF-ESTEEM

First point : The gifts of God.
Second point : Humility.

Evening Preparation. — If I wish to esteem myself
properly I must look for those things in myself that
come from God, especially in the supernatural order.
The great gifts I shall discover will doubtless help me
to understand the loftiness of Christian dignity. It
will be the highest flight of the tendency that is called
self-esteem. I shall then survey without scruple or
exaggeration the total sum of God's gifts. If I mount
high enough I shall see my personal qualities emanat
ing from Him, all my actions sustained by Him, and
the beauty of my soul as a reflection of His own
beauty ; or rather, I shall cease in a sense to see myself,
so much shall I feel myself filled with the divine.

We must bring to this meditation a mind freed from

248 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

vulgar ideas and disposed to a just admiration, a wide
mind that is not hindered by trifling difficulties. We
must bring to it, above all, a great spirit of faith.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace to understand these
truths as if they were presented to me for the first
time; to penetrate them, to feel them and to be im
pressed by them.

I. The gifts of God. — What I am as a human
being : the masterpiece of creation ; the sovereign
ruler of matter ; a little world in which the universe is
reflected through the medium of the senses, and is
transformed in idea through the effort of the intelli
gence; a kind of heaven where God makes Himself
known as an Infinite Being and the Author of all
things ; moral freedom, by means of which I am master
of my actions and of my destiny.

Ah ! how familiar all these wonders are to me ! We
think so little of what we have always known ! To
admire man needs to be astonished !

But let us remember that one gleam of intelligence
is greater than the whole of the starry host of heaven !
that an act of the will is a higher force than all the
movements of the sea ! and that the wonderful instinct
of the animal world is of less value than a single
thought !

At the same time the lustre of these natural gifts
fades before the beauty of the gifts of grace, for these
are of such an order that the Almighty could not
create a being to whom they were natural as reason is
natural to man. Grace can only be a transformation.
It is a participation in the Divine nature, with its need

TRANSFORMATION 249

of the Infinite and its ability to contemplate It face to
face. It is a Divine life in the compass of our rude
being, and because it is Divine, a life that God alone
can exercise in us ; each of our supernatural acts needs
His movement both to be born and to endure. Ah !
if our eyes should be suddenly opened, we should see
this God, the Sovereign Being, in a manner at our
service, continually working to deify us. All this is
true though it is hidden from us. Oh ! to believe it, to
believe it enthusiastically !

This at least would be to catch a glimpse of it, and
to begin really to know ourselves.

A more tender tie binds me to Jesus. Jesus is
my friend, He gives me His Heart and His goods.
Jesus is my brother, He has taken my nature. Jesus
is something of my own; He is my great glory, or
rather, I am something of His and it is my great
happiness. I belong to Him like the little cell buried
deep in my body which receives its life by the action
of my brain; like the little wave of blood that swells
the most distant of my arteries, and which comes from
my heart; a mysterious union here on earth that will
be radiant in heaven ; an incomparable title of dignity
to those who understand ; I am a part of the mystic
being of Jesus, I can lessen or increase It; I am
necessary to His happiness; I can deceive His hopes.
It is given to me either to allow Him to live fully in
me, or to prefer to Him, alas ! the sorry expansion of
my own life by my inordinate pursuit of the pleasures
and plaudits of this world.

Dost thou not find, O my soul, that these grandeurs
suffice to satisfy thy sense of self-esteem and to
establish thy nobility ? What nobility more ancient

250 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

than that which comes from the Eternal? What
nobility more illustrious than that which is descended
from the Highest ?

By Jesus I am the issue of the very blood of God,
and my life is nourished by a Divine food. Need I
wait for heaven to pride myself in these glories?
Heaven will make them shine more brightly, it is true ;
but grace already enriches me with them. Shall I
disdain them because I share them in common with
others ?

Does the good of others diminish my own good ?
Far from it; rather it augments it in countless ways,
by the examples it affords me, the charitable aids it
brings me, and by the special virtues that it calls into
play.

II. Humility makes the gifts of God resplendent. —
Unbelief is the blindness that surveys creation without
discovering God in it. The proud man perhaps sees
God in nature, but he does not see Him in himself.
He attributes everything he does to himself, and what
he is he believes is his own personal character. Most
frequently it is not presumption, but unconsciousness.

Such a man injures God not by driving Him away,
but by ignoring Him.

In proportion as humility sheds its beautiful light
upon this blindness, the evidence of God's action
appears, is extended, and finally encroaches upon our
whole personality, as the sun on its rising floods the
earth with its beams.

Man's greatness here below is to seek God. If he
seeks Him in nature, he finds Him everywhere, even
in the smallest grain of sand ; if he seeks Him in him
self, he finds Him in every part of his being and even

TRANSFORMATION 25 1

in the least of his actions. It follows that the humble
man does not prefer himself to anyone, and that wher.
he admires anything in himself, in a sense he admir.
it on his knees.

Formerly the prudence of a great people led
to place behind the throne of a conqueror a herald at
arms, whose duty it was constantly to repeat to him
this warning: "Remember that thou art a man
These are the words of humility; remember that
beneath all these shows of greatness, thou art but a
man, a nonentity! Keep thy rank, defend thine
honour, take initiatives, insist and fight if necessary,
but while doing all these lawful things, remember,
remember ! Never lose sight of the origin of thy gifts ;
never cease to realise the last end of thine actions

If self-esteem were simply esteem for the work oi
God in every man, it would not then be a personal
sentiment, but a form of worship. But this esteem
regards those gifts as if they were our own, and this is
why we need humility, to open our eyes to show us
how fragile is our hold of them, and thus to moderate
our natural inclination to magnify ourselves on their
account. With all her strength she opposes the vain
complacency we take in them, and forbids us because
of them to feel the least disdain for others.

There is no doubt that rightly to esteem self is a
difficult and delicate virtue; without grace it would be
unwise to aspire to it. A timid tearfulness most ofl
prompts us to shut our eyes.

This is not wisdom, for danger can be avoided, and
a true sense of personal dignity may not find else
where such a powerful motive to sustain it. Such a
sense bestows a kind of royalty; and this royalty,

252 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

firmly established in its dominion, expels evil with an
instinctive and invincible disdain. In the refinement
of its tastes it tends to what is noblest. From the
elevation of a throne, what is base and vulgar is
detected even before it can approach.

Could we unveil the soul of a Saint, we should find
surprise after surprise. The sentiment of self-esteem
would appear in splendid growth; the Saints know
that they are the Sons of God, participate in His
nature, and are future inheritors of His glory.

They are supremely proud of their friendship with
Jesus, of the resemblance to Himself that He has
implanted in their souls, of the constant action that
He exercises in the depths of their being.

These sentiments urge them constantly towards an
ever-growing perfection, and their ambition, taking a
more than human flight, darts to aspire to increase
God Himself by working for His glory. We do not
find them timid or hesitating in face of the most
difficult enterprises or the most threatening dangers.
We see with what an eye they regard the supreme
abasement, sin ; with what horror its assaults fill them.
Seek where we will, nowhere shall we find such a lofty
sense of personal dignity, such a sentiment of great
ness and of strength; a sentiment at the same time
perfectly gentle and peaceful because it is developed
in the pure and calm atmosphere of truth, of goodness,
and of most excellent beauty.

RESOLUTION. — To admire in myself the gifts of
God, in order to give to the sense of personal dignity
its highest motive. Not to content myself with a
superficial view that teaches nothing and effects
nothing.

TRANSFORMATION 253

SECOND MEDITATION
EXERCISE XXX

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE DESIRE FOR
ESTEEM

First point : To desire the esteem of God.
Second point : To desire to please Him.
Third point : To desire to give Him pleasure.

Evening Preparation. — The desire to be esteemed
and the desire to please are so closely connected that
they seem to constitute rather two manifestations of
the same propensity. They are, however, distinct ; the
desire of esteem aims at approbation and aspires to be
favourably judged; it is rather to the mind that it
appeals.

The desire to please aims at the conquest of the
heart ; we wish to be affectionately esteemed.

The distance is still greater between the desire to
please and the desire to give pleasure.

The first is, of its nature, personal; it is concerned
with the satisfaction that esteem brings to ourselves.

The second, without being always disinterested,
seeks first the satisfaction of others. Their common
tie exists, however, in this, that the second is the out
come of the first, as effect is of its cause. He who
wishes to please usually seeks to give pleasure.

Is it possible that the desire to please can be per
meated by the Divine ? Can so human a sentiment be
transformed without ceasing to be itself? Again, let
us gaze into the soul of a Saint . Do we see there the
desire to please reduced to inertia ? No, a thousand

254 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

times no; we find it rather in full activity, in greater
extent, but above all in greater nobility. A new world
has opened to him its transcendent perspectives, a
world of supernatural beings; God, and God every
where; Jesus more peculiarly our own, and in Jesus
all who are bound up with Him, angels and men.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE.— To ask the grace to open my rnind to
these beautiful thoughts, to acquire these fruitful
sentiments, and thus to give to life this lofty direction.

I. May we desire the esteem of God?— It we had
familiar relations with God, we should earnestly desire
His esteem, as we desire the esteem of those among
whom we live, especially the great. To obtain it is to
come nearer to them, to enter their sphere, and to share
their superiority.

But God is invisible and seems so far away. The
esteem He may have for us cannot be shown by any
exterior means ; we do not hear it expressed in words,
we cannot read it in His look.

Does this mean that all ways of understanding are
closed to us ? Are God's sentiments so secret that
they do not betray themselves by any sign whatever ?
In default of word and look, have we no holy pre
sumptions based on His direct assertions ? We know
with the utmost certainty that God loves goodness, the
goodness of a transitory action as well as the goodness
of a permanent quality. Thus, then, in accomplishing
a virtuous action, and in perfecting our qualities, we
are sure of gaining His esteem ; and this esteem grows
with the increasing purity of our actions and strength
of our virtue.

TRANSFORMATION 255

A lively faith alone understands these things; love
alone can make them its life. Alas ! my poor soul may
have a faith without that intimate conviction, and a
love without these noble needs. Is it not useless for her
to make a meditation that as yet is too high for
her?

She may find in it only vague ideas that will profit
her nothing. But on the other hand, it may arouse in
her a desire for something better.

O God, Author of all light, enlighten me ! O God,
Creator of all good sentiments, enliven me ! Deign to
bring within my reach the truths that the Saints knew !
Though I may never reach their heights, I shall grasp
the same truth and shall tend to the same goal that
they reached. Thou dost Thy work gradually in a
soul, O God. Then to-day I will try at least to take
some steps towards the desire to please Thee.

II. How the desire to please God is exercised. — It is
the desire to attract His attention in a special way, to
live in His smile, and finally to make ourselves loved
by Him, for it is in this object that the desire to please
normally ends, even in the human order.

The desire of obtaining some admiration. — Admira
tion is the supreme expression of esteem; it is necessary
to a great love. How can we make ourselves admired
by God ? By every generous effort, by every noble
action, by every exalted sentiment.

What is ordinary is not enough, there must be
something more. Devotion is the first thing ; from this
we go on to the desire for sacrifice. In our fallen state
immolation is the noblest action. Immolation, besides,
supposes great strength of soul, a supremely estimable
quality.

256 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

To devote ourselves to the cause of God, to sacrifice
ourselves when called to do so, to immolate our wishes
when they are a hindrance, to welcome trials sweetly,
and a threatening future with courageous confidence —
these are some of the ways in which we may win the
admiration of the great Appreciator of everything.

To desire to delight God. — This is more than to
attract His attention; it is more than to deserve His
esteem ; it is to begin to gain His Heart. This desire
introduces a very personal stimulus, — to become a
delight to the eyes of God, something that makes His
Heart rejoice ! What an ambition ! what scope for the
soul ! All its faculties are satisfied, for they are
aroused to the fullest life, they grow and are perfected
in the pursuit of their high aim. If we are to charm
God we must acquire moral beauty.

How careful of themselves are those who wish to
please ! How watchful they are over themselves, over
their every word and gesture, and over the least detail
of their lives !

O my God, if I truly desire to please Thine eyes and
charm Thy Heart, I ought to be without any tastes, or
wishes, or actuations of my own. I seem to be a
stranger to this desire, yet I do not know why.
Perhaps it is exhausted on other objects, or it needs to
be encouraged in my soul. An interior life that is
mediocre does not give rise to fervent aspirations :
Oh ! for purity of heart, for intimacy in prayer, for
intensity of desire. To charm God ! Why, even to
dream of it means a generous piety.

Ah ! if I could establish myself in this holy dis
position ! If I could give to my life this orientation !
If I could devote longer hours to meditation ! If,

TRANSFORMATION 257

during the day, I more often sought the regard of Him
Whom I desire to please !

This regard must, above all, be the regard of Jesus,
the God-Man, Jesus, my brother. To please Thee, to
make myself loved by Thee, to obtain sweet praise
from Thy lips, or to await it in heaven, what scope
there is here for my desire to please ! — a limitless field
for my love and energy. Day and night Thy attention
is fixed upon me, O Jesus; Thy Soul is sensitive to
every sort of kindness, it is conscious of the most
delicate shades. What I cannot express, what I feel
without even understanding it, wonder of wonders !
Thou readest clearly in my heart.

O Jesus, Thou art in Thyself alone a whole world, a
bigger, fuller, more animated world than the world of
men, where we compete for honour, and an honour
rarely obtained, enjoyed in fear and never firmly held,
for this world passes, and with it vanishes like smoke
its vain esteem. But Thou, O Jesus ! Thou bearest to
heaven and makest eternal every feeling that I have
roused in Thy great Heart, all the esteem that I may
have succeeded in winning from Thee.

III. In what the desire to give God pleasure consists.
— The somewhat personal desire to attract the regard
of God and to please Him elevates itself almost uncon
sciously into the disinterested desire to give Him
pleasure. To give Him some joy, some glory, to
devote oneself, to immolate oneself that these acts may
honour Him, to enrich oneself with virtue that the
sight of it may please Him ! By virtue of the desire
to charm and delight Him, we become smitten with
the charms of God ; by stripping ourselves of all that
has kept us far from Him, we come to love His supreme

17

258 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

amiability above everything else ; the desire to please
creates the desire to give pleasure.

There is a whole new life in this more elevated order
of sentiments. The qualities we show in our efforts to
please take on a more beautiful, more tender, and
perfect form. We bring them into constant exercise :
if only we may please God ! We live in the joy that
we give Him not because we give it, but because we
feel it in Him. We are consoled in our own troubles
by the thought that He is happy. The detachment
from self is brought about so gently that we are
scarcely conscious of it, and in a manner so complete
that God reigns in every part of us. We thus assure
to virtue a more stable foundation and a more exalted
crown. Caprice and inconstancy can find no foothold
here, and pride itself seems to disappear, lost in the
bosom of God.

O God so amiable and so beloved, since so many
beautiful souls exist who have thus died to Thee and
have no life but Thine, no other desire than Thy
glory, no other joys than Thy joys, be pleased to
instil into my poor heart some gleams of these
desires.

If my wings are not strong enough constantly to
reach such heights, permit at least that I may reach
them in my meditations ; there will then remain in my
active life some traces of the lofty inspirations of those
regions.

RESOLUTION. — To apply to myself the words of the
first martyr, S. Stephen : " I see heaven open and Jesus
at the right hand of His Father."

TRANSFORMATION 259

To-day I will seek the regard of Jesus, a regard that
may say to me : " Thou pleasest me."

What shall I not attempt to obtain this favour !

THIRD MEDITATION
EXERCISE XXXI

THE DESIRE TO PLEASE AND TO GIVE PLEASURE
TO OTHERS

First point : God seen in our neighbour.
Second point : Jesus in our neighbour.
Third point : Practical rules.

Evening Preparation. — To show ourselves indul
gent, easy, and kind, to everyone around us ; to seek
habitually to give them pleasure; and to allow each
to feel the warm affection that gladdens — this is an
ideal that poor human nature cannot fully realise in
its own strength. Too many personal considerations,
too much inconstancy, govern its feelings on the one
hand; and on the other, too much moral deformity
disfigures the objects of its affection. It needs beauty
to help it.

Man can only give to man this ideal love by invest
ing him with the divine Ideal. This is why we cannot
meditate too much upon the counsel of the new law :
See God in your neighbour ; see your neighbour in the
bosom of your Saviour.

Have we really grasped this counsel of peace, of
perfection, and of true happiness ?

Does it control our feelings and appear in our
actions ? Alas ! it is scarcely a conviction with us.

26o THE PATH OF HUMILITY

We repeat it as a well-known but empty phrase. But
what do we expect ? That God will perform a miracle
and cry it from the heights of heaven ? It is not His
way. Or that the Divine Master will come and visibly
take by the hand and present to us Himself each
person whom He has given to us ? He does it invisibly
each day.

Is He not in the Host in every Mass ? and in Holy
Communion does He not give Himself to each ? What
more do we want ?

O Divine Master, open my eyes, the eyes of faith
that alone can discern Thee ! When, to-morrow, I
come to see Thee irr my neighbour, towards whom I
often feel bitterly and almost always indifferently,
grant that I may begin to love him with the love that
I bear Thee, O Jesus.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE.— /To ask for a great spirit of faith in order
to discover the divine that is hidden in every man, and
a great wisdom to keep our desire to please and to
give pleasure to our neighbour free from narrowness
or excess.

I. God in our neighbour. — To direct towards God
that desire to please and to give pleasure that is in the
very depths of our nature is to elevate it in a wonder
ful way, and to give it an object that will not elude
its effort. But here on earth God does not show His
face, and it is in vain that we seek a clear manifestation
of the pleasure we give Him. A smile or a sympathetic
look is sufficient to reward an effort or to provoke it,
but from heaven neither smile nor look descends to
reassure us. Our supernatural relations are established

TRANSFORMATION 261

on the basis of the will. What is sensible, powerful
though it may be, is never anything but an accessory.
Many perfect souls find themselves habitually in
desolation; yet even so, they continue with great
strides along the austere path of duty, loving God
with fidelity, devotion, and sacrifice, in the fashion of
the strong. It is their way of giving Him pleasure.

Others, more consoled, feel sometimes in prayer the
sweetness of a mutual love. But both have a perpetual
hunger for God ; the first because they have not tasted
Him ; the second because, having tasted Him, they are
insatiable. Then both turn to their neighbour. God
has made him in His image; to see their neighbour is
in a sense to see Him. God has communicated to him
His nature; to love him, then, is to love something
of His.

Recall the touching scene in which Raguel receives
the young Tobias. Read the Bible account of it :
" And Raguel looking upon Tobias, said to Anna his
wife: ' How like is this young man to my cousin!'
And when he had spoken these words he said :
' Whence are ye, young men, our brethren ?' But they
said : ' We are of the tribe of Nephtali, of the captivity
of Ninive.' And Raguel said to them : ' Do you know
Tobias, my brother ?' And they said, ' We know him.'
And when he was speaking many good things of him,
the angel said to Raguel : ' Tobias, concerning whom
thou enquirest, is this young man's father.' And
Raguel went to him and kissed him with tears, and
weeping upon his neck, said : ' A blessing be upon
thee, my son, because thou art the son of a good and
most virtuous man.' And Anna his wife, and Sara
their daughter, wept."

262 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

S. Francis of Sales makes the following comments
upon the scene : " See how Raguel, without knowing
the little Tobias, takes him in his arms, caresses him,
kisses him, weeps for love of him. From whence
sprang this love if not from that which he bore to the
old Tobias, the father, whom this child so closely
resembled ? And, God of truth, when we see this
neighbour of ours, created in the image and likeness
of God, should we not say to one another : ' Behold,
how like this creature is to the Creator !' Does it not
behove us to bless him a thousand times ? And why ?
For love of him ? No, indeed, for we do not know
whether in himself he is worthy of love or of hatred.
Then why ? For the love of God, Who has formed
him to His image and likeness; for the love of God, of
Whom he is, to Whom he belongs, in Whom he is, and
for Whom he is; . . . and this is why not only does
the Divine Love again and again command us to love
our neighbour, but that Love Itself enkindles and
spreads such love in the human heart, the likeness
and image of Itself, for the sacred love of man to
man is the true image of the celestial love of man
to God."

Thus we may love everyone in advance with a
general love ; and when in the course of life some par
ticular person, by his qualities, his feelings, and his
deserts, acquires a special interest in our eyes, we shall
see them as the work of God, the reflection of His
perfections, the gift He places near us to help or to
delight us. Thus in everything God shows Himself,
making Himself beloved in those whom we love ; and
thus in the depths of our hearts God makes Himself
felt as the new Principle of our affections, that are as

TRANSFORMATION 263

warm as before, but holily exalted. Have we thoughts
such as these ?

Reflections. — What a beautiful and helpful point of
view ! An incentive to universal kindness, considera
tion, and kindly services. A source of peace. An
exaltation of our human affections : guardian of their
dignity. A truly supernatural life, of which God is
the object and the interior secret origin.

II. ^Jesus in our neighbour. — Let us go farther, and
contemplate the Divine Presence as It is displayed to
us in the Incarnation. Having given us His likeness,
God, wishing to take ours, made Himself one of us.
Why ? Was it only to redeem us ? If so, it would
have sufficed to give His Blood. But why those thirty
years of hidden life as obscure as our own ? Why
those three years of public life during which He made
Himself known to the world ? Why, if it was not to
give us a perfect model of what man should be to
man ? — a model so beautiful that at first we are baffled
by it ; so meek and humble that it soon comes to appear
imitable; so strong and so tender that it takes pos
session of the heart ; in a word, so divine that we adore
it on our knees, so human that we cannot help exclaim
ing : " Oh ! my brother."

When about to leave the earth, He cast at humanity
this great sentence : " Love one another as I have loved
you," and instinctively we look around us for beings
to whom we may devote ourselves. And when He
adds : " What ye have done unto the least of these My
brethren, ye have done it unto Me," we feel that
beneath the words a great mystery lies hidden. It is
not merely a pious recommendation, but a clear state
ment of a fact, the fact that the life of Jesus is in us ;

264 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

it is a doctrine as true as it is beautiful, and the deter
mining principle of the truest, easiest, and most
exquisite charity.

O adored Master, Thou dost require me to feel for
my neighbour those sentiments that Thy Divine charm
has evoked ; Thou dost look for actions, no doubt, but
Thou dost also expect sentiments, and such sentiments
as will attract men, encourage them and help them to
be better.

Thou dost cover the poor human personality with
the brightness of Thy name, not to efface it, but to
adorn and protect it.

Thou dost illumine it with Thy radiant image in
order to lessen the shadows of its defects ; Thou dost
elevate it by Thine action within it ; and all this to win
for it a pity without contempt, an unfailing devotion
and love that ascend even to Thee !

We cannot but desire to please those whom Jesus
honours, and to give pleasure to those whom Jesus
loves.

' To wish to give our neighbour pleasure and to
devote ourselves to that object is a programme that
many Saints and unknown pious people have set before
themselves. It is a programme that comprises every
delicacy of love, every kindly service, every mark of
consideration for others, the long-suffering of charity,
every little act that is sweetened by a smile, and even
that gentleness of word and welcoming aspect of face
that become the characteristics of a heart in which God
reigns and acts.

Our desire to please will be a desire to please God ;
it will grow and deepen under the influence of the
Infinite ; it will be purified by contact with Uncreated

TRANSFORMATION 265

Love ; it will become entirely pleasing in the effort to
give pleasure to God our Father. In this school of
love the heart learns admirable lessons !

Now when it turns towards its neighbour, it will
bring to him a delicate condescension, an elevation of
love, and a constancy acquired in its relations with the
Divine loveliness.

But when the wish to please descends from heaven
to earth, it is exposed to many dangers. It is tempted
to excess, to a selfish preoccupation that sees its own
interest rather than the good to be done; and it may
meet with obsequiousness taking the form of baleful
flattery most harmful to the soul.

III. Practical rules. — The frequent renewal of a
pure intention is the greatest safeguard against these
temptations. O my God, I wish to be kind in order
to be good and to please Thee.

In a pure soul any kind of infidelity is easily
detected. Preoccupation is the first sign of danger.
If it arises from unquietness of soul, examine it closer.
If it degenerates into sadness or bitterness, be sure
that some vice is at work. By examination and prayer
you will discover it, and love of virtue will soon cast
it out.

The first rule of this sentiment is, then, a
defensive ru-le. The second is a rule of wise liberty.
In trying to overcome one danger we must be careful
not to fall into another. We must suppress without
destroying. Because we are exposed to danger in our
desire to please, we are not to retrench every pleasing
manifestation of it. This would be uselessly to
mutilate our nature, to impoverish our life, to snap the
most sacred ties. Sadness would become the law of

266 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

perfection, and virtue would show itself under the
parlous symbol of a tree stripped of its leaves.

Oh no, this is not the true ideal ! The ideal is a
desire to please conformable to the exigencies of the
position of each individual; a frank and wholesome
desire that is exercised under the influence of God and
in His sight, shedding around it a gentle and pene
trating charm that is the special glory of Christian
virtue. " For that soul alone loves God who loves in
Him those whom she loves."

What kind of a society would that be that should be
animated by such sentiments ! What peace ! What
a lessening of suffering ! What consolation in our
inevitable trials ! A city of dreams that will never
gladden the sun here on earth ! Rather an ideal city
whose members, dispersed here and there in the midst
of universal egotism, are the heroes who are called
Saints. Their example at least we have to excite
individual generosities, and to maintain before the
world the true type of an ideal Christian.

RESOLUTION. — Attentive vigilance, wise liberty, a.
gaze persistently fixed upon God.

A SURVEY OF THE TWO SUCCEEDING
MEDITATIONS

When the glory of Thabor had faded and the
mysterious clouds dispersed, the Apostles "raising
their eyes saw Jesus only."

Coming out of the lights and shadows of these long
meditations, let us also raise our eyes and simplify our
ideas by looking at Jesus only.

TRANSFORMATION 267

In the contemplation of His humility we shall
become humble by imitation.

Imitation fixes its eyes on its model and borrows its
features from it; union does still more, it draws it
into itself and derives its life from it.

But imitation and union are two forms of the same
sentiment, love; and two agents of the same work,
perfection.

Such was the humility of Mary; and it is to its
contemplation that the two last meditations are
devoted.

It is also the most faithful likeness of the humility
of Jesus; the white light of the moon, faint reflection
of the sun, descends more gently on our eyes.

O most humble of pure creatures, you are also the
most powerful. It is to you that we turn our eyes and
our hopes. By love you communicate to us the
humility of your Divine Son.

FOURTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE XXXII

MARY TRANSFORMED BY HER IMITATION OF
THE HUMBLE JESUS

First point : The humility of imitation of Mary as a Mother.
Second point : Her humility as co-Redeemer.
Third point : To make ourselves humble by Imitating
Mary.

Evening Preparation. — If we would study the
depths of Mary's humility, we should have to apply to
it the ideas that we have just been meditating upon.
This is not our purpose here, but before approaching

268 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

the special subject we have in view, let us note the two
very important differences between her humility and
ours.

Mary saw the reasons for being humble with a
perfectly clear, constant, and penetrating vision. We
forget and lose sight of them ; Mary never.

She is always conscious of them and unweariedly
contemplates them ; her eyes are ever open to the sight
of the Infinite and her own littleness. The Magnificat
is the secret canticle of her every hour. Respexit
humilitatem, fecit mihi magna.

The state of our humility is such that to safeguard
it God shelters its frailty beneath imperfections,
or at least beneath mysterious ignorances. Delicate
plants need a little shade.

In Mary's case God takes no such precautions. He
exposes her to the full sunshine of truth.

She is immaculate, she is perfect. " She is blessed
among women," and she knows it !

She has grasped, better than any theologian, the full
greatness of her divine maternity, and she knows all
its prerogatives. But the fulness of grace she has
received only makes her more sensible of the depth of
her own nothingness.

" No creature, save Jesus, has descended into such
depths of humility" — Nulla creatura, post F ilium,
tantum descendit in abyssum humilitatis (S.
Bernardine of Siena).

Now, such humility is heroical, and heroism is the
quality that is brought into play in sublime and
difficult actions. Then what shall we say of a quality
that, during the whole life, accomplished what no man
could sustain for a single day ?

TRANSFORMATION 269

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace to love Jesus enough
to feel an ardent desire to imitate Him.

I. The humility of imitation of Mary as Mother. —
The humble Jesus was her Son, her own Son, belong
ing to her and to her alone ; her well-beloved Son, her
God and her Son — her all.

And she loved Him ! Happier still, she adored Him
in her love. Ah ! if mothers could ! All else is silent
in the presence of this sentiment, everything is accom
plished in this intense flame of love.

And she loved a humble Jesus, for she knew no
other. There is no Jesus but Jesus incarnate, and
Jesus incarnate is Jesus annihilated.

From the first moment He made Himself humble,
and He will remain humble as long as He is a man
and her Son.

And she studied Him, — with her eyes, with her
heart, with her intuitions, as a mother. The mother
has the genius of divining everything. Her thoughts,
like her life, are wrapped up in this Being Who is
always hers.

The heart imparts great intuitive power. The heart
commands and the intelligence obeys. It presses it so
hard at times that it oversteps its proper sphere.

The heart is the nest in which everything is brought
forth. Creation owes its existence to the love of God.

In the heart of Mary each act and word and gesture
of her Son were renewed and pondered. Conferens in
corde suo. The humble Jesus grew up in the presence
of her ecstatic love. What a school of humility to live
in the sight of His Divine Mysteries, His littleness,

2/o THE PATH OF HUMILITY

His weakness, His poverty, and the love with which
He loved these things !

Later she watched Him at work, admiring His
modesty, His gentleness, His love of humiliating
occupations, His love of the insignificant — the con
tinual miracle of His self-effacement.

We may say that she knew her Jesus by heart, her
humble Jesus ! To imitate Him became her Jaw, her
need, and almost unconsciously she made herself
humble by not seeking herself in anything. She loves
to share the shade where He is hidden, the silence in
which He seems to be lost, she delights in abasing
herself ever lower and lower, with Him !

But He is so far ahead of her that, though she
follows Him closely, she never catches Him up, and
she beseeches Him to wait for her. But He presses on.
He is hastening to Calvary. " We shall arrive there
together," He calls back to her.

II. Her humility of imitation as co-Redeemer. —
Already, over His cradle, passes the breath of death ;
the distant voices of the Prophets sound these ominous
words — " expiation," " victim." Distressing presenti
ments nil the Mother's heart. What ! this gentle Face
will be struck! these little Hands, these little Feet,
will be pierced with nails ! and this Innocent will be
raised on the infamous Cross !

Ah ! if she could take His place ! No, she cannot
take it, but she will occupy it with Him, for not only
is she His Mother, she is His divine associate. As
Mother she set herself to be united with her Son in
every intention and trial and heart-beat. He has made
her His co-Redeemer.

See her, then, armed with the right to share His
saving humiliations ; rather, indeed, to will them with

TRANSFORMATION 27 1

Him. Her Son wills to be humiliated, and she wills
that He shall be ; she suffers acutely, but still she wills
it; her Son wills to die, and she wills that He shall
die; she is immolated on Calvary with Him. When
He is dead, sublime part ! she is left alone to suffer
the humiliations which are attached to the Body of
her well-beloved ! Thus by a mother the sacrifice is
still prolonged !

III. With Mary to make ourselves humble by
imitation. — Since love has this power, let us love.
Love contemplates, love divines, love imitates.

It is beautiful to become humble by love. Without
depriving humility of anything, it is to give it a
motive more exalted than itself.

It is right that we should become humble by love,
for is not charity the queen, the origin of all the virtues,
the only giver of life ?

To become humble by love is wise. Nothing is so
powerful as love, nothing so attractive; by its means
we shall acquire humility more easily.

Fear cramps ; it. may restrain from evil, it may even
give a certain impulse towards good; but love alone
opens wide our hearts, and does away with evil in the
best way by raising us above it.

Let us, with Mary, contemplate Jesus humble in
His mysteries, in His words, in His Person, in His
Sacred Heart, in His Eucharist. With her let us take
a delight in imitating Him. In odorem unguentorum
tuorum currimus, — let us run after the perfume of His
ointments.

RESOLUTION. — To make a sweet picture of the
humble Jesus, to look at it frequently and to adopt the
sentiments of Mary.

272 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

FIFTH MEDITATION
EXERCISE XXXIII

MARY TRANSFORMED IN THE HUMBLE JESUS
BY UNITY OF LIFE

First point : Jesus living in Mary.
Second point : Jesus living in us.

Evening Preparation. — To-morrow we shall
meditate upon that beautiful union of life that is
formed by grace and crowned by glory, the mysterious
but veritable union of Jesus with the souls of the just
in one mystical Body.

In Mary this common life existed in a fashion apart ;
she shared it in an eminent manner and developed it
to an extent impossible to gauge.

Yet between her condition and ours there is this
likeness : Mary lived the life of Jesus, and so do we ;
she was a member of His mystical Body, and in an
inferior degree so we are.

This lofty truth is for us a source of dignity :
noblesse oblige] a motive of great delicacy ; Jesus wills
to share our feelings ; a stimulus to progress : He
looks to us for an increase of His Life.

To-day we have contemplated Jesus with a view to
imitate Him. To-morrow we shall contemplate Him
in ourselves in order to unite our actions with His.

MEDITATION

PRELUDE. — To ask the grace to derive from this
meditation a great increase of delicacy, generosity, and
spiritual joy.

TRANSFORMATION 273

I. Jesus living in Mary. — What a beautiful exchange
took place between Mother and Son ! Mary com
municates her own life to Jesus. With her blood first
and then with her milk she forms His sacred Body.
She transmits to Him the physical resemblance that is
seen in face and gait and manner. Moreover, she
passed on to Him those moral likenesses that are the
result of temperament and constitute family tastes and
dispositions. What did she not give Him ?

Jesus in turn communicates to His Mother His life
of grace, and He does it royally. He gives her a
plenitude of this life, yet a plenitude that nevertheless
will go on increasing.

In His life as the Man-God Jesus lived in Mary, and
with the whole strength of her mind and will Mary
kept herself in constant union with Him. The more
she grew in grace, in merits, and in love, the more
deeply she entered into this community of life. Each
mystery brought her fresh light and increased her
ardour of love. From the first the Mother and Son
seemed to live one life, but the Holy Communion com
pleted this union. This time Mary was the recipient,
and the life that was given her in exchange for the
gift of hers was the life of a God more than ever
annihilated.

Verily from the depths of her heart she could cry,
as did later S. Paul : " I live, now not I, but Christ
Who liveth in me."

We may admire and congratulate this Son and this
Mother. By Mary, at least, the humiliations that Jesus
suffered would be fully understood, imitated, and
shared.

II. Jesus living in us. — " Jesus lives in me, in me

18

THE PATH OF HUMILITY

too " — Vivit vero in me Christus. Mihi vivere Christus
est — He is my life. How am I to understand this?
Does it mean the gift of His life that He has made to
me on the Cross ?

Doubtless, but this gift is rather the source of my
life than my life itself, for life is denned as the interior
spring of action.

The life here spoken of is rather an influence, interior
and actual, flowing from Him to me, an extension in
me of the very life of Jesus. Thus is the vine extended
in the shoot that it forms and nourishes.

But that this life may permeate and vivify me, the
sacred Vine and the shoot must by some means touch
and be united; communication must be established
between them. But Thou art so far from me in heaven,
O Jesus.

It is true that Jesus in His Humanity remains afar
in His heaven, and that Holy Communion gives Him
to us but in a fleeting fashion, yet it binds us to Him
in His Divinity in such a manner that His thoughts,
His wishes, His graces, and His life itself are trans
mitted to us. Ever living He knows us, He loves us,
and unceasingly prays for us — Semper vivens ad inter-
-pellandum -pro no bis.

If I evoke the past to discover the Jesus of the
Gospels, if in order the better to see and hear Him I
transport myself to the places where He lived, if I love
to imagine His face and the sound of His voice, why
should I not in the same way span the distance
between heaven and earth and approach Him with my
heart ?

Jesus lives on high in glory, but He does not live
for Himself. He is our Head and is ever working for

TRANSFORMATION 275

the regeneration of humanity. When, mingled with
thousands upon thousands of other prayers, my prayer
rises to Him, He distinguishes it and listens to it as if
it were the only one. He has followed my steps from
my earliest infancy : nothing in me is strange to Him,
not even my human troubles. He has thoughts about
my future and a beautifully designed plan for it. I
love to imagine Him deep in thought and that His
thoughts are of me, and to see Him suppliant before
His Father and to think that He is asking for a grace,
for pardon, and for progress, for me !

Oh ! to think of this dear and noble Head busying
Himself with the welfare of His smallest member !

This action is hidden, it is true, but it is real ; I have
no need to feel it, I believe it ; and this faith is one of
the strongest incentives to my fervour. Could I make
up my mind to remain mediocre ? If I did I should
arrest the growth of the life of Jesus in me. Will Jesus
think this thought with me ? Will He make His own
this action that I design to do? Will His Heart be
united with mine in this affection? Can I wish Him
to mingle His sentiments with mine if they are base ?
His thoughts with mine if they are impure ? Can I
drag Him into my self-seeking pride and dreary
egotism ? He would turn away ; His grace would not
accompany me ; communion would be broken.

On the other hand, I may render Jesus greater in
His mystical being; I may increase the life of His
great Body, and in doing this I shall surpass my own
limitations, I shall meet Him with all my initiative and
put at His service all my activity, and if I do not
perceive the inspirations of His grace within me, I shall
seek to discover His wishes in His teaching and

2/6 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

example, for still and always His thoughts are the
thoughts He expressed when on earth.

Thus, then, O Jesus, we shall live together. The
works done under Thy influence become common to us
both. They are mine, since I accomplish them freely ;
they are Thine, since all that is supernatural in them is
the work of Thy grace. Take them, then, for they are
Thine; receive them, since they are also mine; and
unite them to Thy great mystical Body.

If my admiration is aroused by the immensity of
Thy life in the millions of souls that have been created
by Thee during the centuries, the thought of Thy
fatherly attention to each individual soul delights me
with the intimacy of Thy love. I am amazed and as if
speechless in the remembrance that I belong to Thee,
and that through me Thou becomest greater !

Happy those souls who understand these wonders,
wonders that are hidden from most ; happier still those
who cultivate the charm of them ; they will sink from
abyss to abyss ever deeper into humility, far from the
pettiness of miserable pride. O amare! o ire! o sibi
perire! o ad Deurn -pervenire — "To love Thee! to
follow Thee ! to lose myself and to find Thee, O God,
my supreme good !" (S. Augustine).

RESOLUTION. — Before any decision to consult my
heart : an instant is sufficient when we are very near
Him.

TRANSFORMATION 277

PARTICULAR EXAMEN

SPIRIT of light and truth, enlighten and touch my
soul !

Convinced of the infinite goodness of our Lord and
of my own misery and ingratitude, am I engulfed in
His meek and humble heart, as He truly desires me to
be ? Do I keep myself hidden there, annihilated, and
relinquishing my all too personal life that I may live
His Life for Him ?

In the morning act of humility, in Holy Communion,
and in my spiritual exercises, do I think of Him
annihilating Himself with me before His Father ? — To
annihilate self in adoration, thanksgiving, reparation,
and prayer.

Have I procured Him the joy that He seeks of
tasting in me exterior and interior humiliations ? —
humiliations coming from God, from my neighbour,
from myself, from every untoward event.

With Him have I turned against myself when my
pride and self-seeking have made themselves felt ? Do
I promptly unite myself with the contempt that Jesus,
Who is living in me, feels for them ?

Do I recollect that it is a meek and humble Jesus
Who seeks to live in me ? In this thought, with my
superiors, do I show myself simple and humble, feeling
myself in the hands of God ? with everyone about me,
only speaking of myself in all simplicity, giving up
and even despising my own ideas when possible ? with
inferiors, showing no exigence, but on the contrary
much sweetness ?

2;8 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Have I made this simple question my rule of dis
crimination : Can Jesus think this thought with me ?
love in this affection ? accompany me in this pro
ceeding ?

Have I found peace in these words : " Provided that
Jesus is content " ? and courage in this assurance : " I
shall add to His brow a ray of glory " ? Have I kept
in mind always to allow Him to live, to grow, and to
take His delight in me ?

In Jesus, have I given up all preoccupation with self,
forgetting " her who is not " in order to occupy myself
solely with " Him Who is " ?

Have I referred all good to God ? Have I counted
absolutely upon His aid for triumph over all evil ? O
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, live freely in my
soul !

REFLECTIONS ON THE RELATION OF
HUMILITY TO DIVINE LOVE

WHEN I contemplate on the one hand humility, poor
in appearance, abased, seeking the shade; and on the
other love, in its pride, its brightness, its longing for
expansion, I ask myself how the assertions of the
Saints, comparing and uniting them, can be justified.
But as my insight becomes more penetrating, I discern
between these two sentiments a connection so close
that they may be considered inseparable; a likeness so
striking that we recognise their common origin; a
reciprocal action so perfect that we are led to ask
whether love and humility are not a compound forming
one virtue, as the body and soul form the human ego.

TRANSFORMATION 279

Assuredly humility and love constitute two distinct
virtues ; but it is not temerity to say that we never see
them apart. Born from the same source, they both
give to God the preference over all else, and both speak
the same sublime language of adoration.

Love finds her God by springing up towards Him ;
humility meets Him in the depths of her lowliness.
Both are detached from creatures; love raising herself
above them into a sphere where she rules them,
humility condescending to them and touching them
with her disdain. Universal submission is a feature of
love as of humility : to the one it is a matter of justice,
to the other of affection.

I. Their common aim : the glory of God. — Love
desires the good of her God, and here on earth we
call it His glory. Everything must contribute to it, all
that is in my heart, everything I do, everything I wish
for — all for His glory, that in everything it may be
enhanced. It alone should reign in the universe; and
there is not an atom that may not become a voice to
proclaim it, a means of serving it, and an ornament to
embellish it.

Its dangerous rival is the exaltation of the human
me, pride. When I am exalted in my own eyes, or
when I hanker for the esteem of others, I consider only
myself; I forget God, and I do not think of His glory.
If my soul is mediocre, it is content with pleasing self;
if it is great, it will wish to raise itself higher than
others, and will waste its powers in the torments of
-ambition or envy. Paltry pride fills existence with
vanity; a haughty pride wrecks it. An avenging
humility drives out these usurpers. If thou art naught,
and evil, give up thy ridiculous pretensions ! A being

28o THE PATH OF HUMILITY

endowed with reason has no right to degrade it with
self-seeking; its duty is to tend towards kindness,
greatness, and infinite perfection. It is its rightful aim
as a creature, and the supreme occupation for its
activity.

It is the superior element that makes for sanctity
here below and beatification in heaven.

O humility, when thou castest out the idol, thou dost
not leave the temple empty. In the place of the
troublesome self thou forbiddest me to serve, thou
settest God and His glory.

It is true that thou dost abase thyself, but it is only
to take a more vigorous flight upwards, and if thou
contemnest thyself, it is in order to be free.

Inseparable companions in the earthly combat,
humility and love could not conquer except by this
close alliance : the death of the one would bring ruin
to the other. Without humility love would vanish in
illusion ; without love, humility would sink under the
weight of its lowliness. But united, these two senti
ments give to God His greatest glory by the sacrifice
of everything that exalts the human personality. They
place on the altar both the esteem of men, and that
which is inclined to attract it — talent, success, and
even that lawful honour which may be sacrificed to
God alone. Humility furnishes the victim, love the
sacred fire. Humility is the judge who pronounces the
sentence, love the sword that executes it, for love alone
is strong as death; and if sometimes the heavenly
Master stays the sword and releases the victim, as He
did in Abraham's case, if He allows the soul to wear
the aureole of general admiration, she bears it as some
thing that is not her own.

TRANSFORMATION 28 1

Thus through love humility attains the lowest
depths of its ambition : annihilation.

Thus through humility, love is enabled to offer to
God a victim worthy, if it is possible, of His Infinity.

II. Their common origin: the vision of God. — A
sentiment grows from the motive power which inspires
it. Love finds its motive in the Amiability of God :
this it is that she envisages and is enamoured with.
Towards It she springs, and she soars higher in pro
portion as It manifests Its attractions more clearly.
Love increases with sight and is raised to ever loftier
regions.

Whether this love is a holy passion that carries us
away, or remains a simple love of the will that displays
itself in its choice, it is none the less a disinterested
sentiment, for such is its essence : holy passion or
voluntary choice, both have in view only the Divine
Amiability.

Perfect humility also makes the same Divine Beauty
the object of her abasements. In face of the Divine
Greatness of which she has caught a glimpse, a soul
feels herself infinitely little; before the Supreme
Authority she bows herself in complete submission.

Once the deep and mighty agency of God, the
mysterious and actual source of all good, is revealed
to her faith, she will seek in vain for anything on which
to found her pretensions.

Nothing really belongs to the creature, for nothing
ness and sin have no positive being.

Now with the effacement of everything earthly, the
Divine Being is displayed in all His magnificence.

I cannot, then, contemplate Thee, O my God, in Thy
marvellous attributes, without feeling this double

282 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

sentiment of humility and love. They are born of the
same regard, dilate at the same surprises, and mutually
increase and complete each other. Every ascent of the
one carries the other higher. Love says : " How
beautiful is God !" Humility responds : " Beside Him,
how vile I am ! " Love says, " He loves me ! " and
humility exclaims : " Can He ?" Then love bends
down to explain everything : " See, He is as good as
He is beautiful; He takes no count of our littleness;
He is satisfied with what we are able to give Him."

Humility, raising her head : " Then we must love
Him more ! The debasement in which I see myself,
and that makes me fear, the faults that fill my life and
that might close His Heart to me — all these miseries
that are my very self become motives of love ! What !
am I truly loved thus ? It is natural to love what is
beautiful and pure, but what goodness must that be
that can love without these things, and even in spite
of ugliness and ingratitude?"

Love : " O Humility, my sister, there are then depths
of goodness that without thee I should never have
guessed; thou enlargest my vision; and what I see
wounds my heart with the desire to love more. Wilt
thou that we should love Him together ?"

Humility : " O divine Love, holy sister of whom I am
unworthy, thou wilt transform me in thyself. I remain
humility, but I become love. I re-vest myself in thy
rich apparel. Beneath it, however, let me keep my
rags. Their constant touch upon my flesh will serve
to remind me of my native misery, and will give to my
features, my voice, and my least actions something of
confusion and tenderness."

Love : " And such an expression and tone of voice

TRANSFORMATION 283

I, too, will adopt, for they are pleasing to God, and
protect from the admiration of men. I too will descend
into thy littleness, that all self-complacence may be
lost ; and to thwart vain esteem, so long as I am in the
world I will walk hidden beneath thy cloak."

Humility : " Then thou wilt cast me aside in heaven
as the traveller throws off the cloak that was his shelter
on the journey !"

Love : " Oh no ! I will transform thee ; thou wilt
become beatific adoration, the golden mantle that in
heaven clothes anew the nothing !"

GENERAL EXAMINATION

WHAT esteem and what desire have we for humility ?
Do we understand that humility alone can give to the
soul the capacity to receive and to preserve all the
other virtues ? Is humility something for which we
are most accustomed to pray ? Do we often make it
the subject of our meditations, our reading, and our
self-examination ?

Among the many means of acquiring humility, is
there one that we have employed with perseverance ?
When we are in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament,
when we possess It in our hearts, do we seek to make
our own the ineffable humility of Jesus in the Host
and His communicative sweetness ?

Do we regard the humiliations that come to us either
from our neighbour or from ourselves as so many
precious and providential opportunities of advancing
ourselves in the science of humility ? Are we per-

284 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

suaded that what appear to be our best actions are too
often spoilt by some one of our secret evil inclinations ?

How do we support the blow to our self-love when
we perceive that our reputation is questioned or
endangered ? Does our peace remain untroubled, or
do we lose it when we discover what we really are and
of how little value ?

Again, are we not more anxious to hide than to
conquer our faults ?

Do we willingly converse with people of an inferior
condition ? Whither do our sympathies instinctively
turn — towards simple, modest souls, or towards bold
spirits who are always sure of themselves ? As a rule
do we not like what is distinguished, solely because it
removes us from the commonplace, the vulgar, as we
sometimes contemptuously call it ? In our manner o£
speaking and acting, do we never put on airs that in
others we should think ridiculous ? Do we realise that
the spirit of the Gospel requires that a Christian shall
be simple in his mode of life, his dress, his food, and
in everything in which worldly people are osten
tatious ?

Do we never acquiesce in that universal conspiracy
against truth that is entered into for the satisfaction
of the vanity of human nature ? Is it repugnant to us
to offer and to receive those lying flatteries that society
people interchange?

Do we love to do good in secret ? While yet ful
filling the duty of edification, do we keep ourselves in
the spirit of our Lord's counsel, when He said, " When
ye pray, enter into your closet, « . . and the Father
Who seeth in secret shall reward you openly " ? Do
we not sometimes fall into the deplorable habit

TRANSFORMATION 285

that some have of speaking of our works of zeal,
as much from self-satisfaction as for the sake of
talking ?

Have we preserved our humility in times of con
solation and spiritual progress, and in the success of
our work ? When these rare joys are wanting, do we
content ourselves with the witness of our conscience ?
Are we able to pass a long time without any exterior
sign of the approbation of others ? Have we not corn-
batted our depression and discouragement with a
complacent regard of the advantageous aspects of our
personality ?

Has the distrust of our own powers been the prelude
of a great confidence in God ? Do we never use our
humility as a pretext for laziness, wasting time in
bemoaning our incapacity instead of improving our
selves by work and generous sacrifice ?

Do we disguise under the name of humility a dis
position to a sullen temper and ennui with ourselves
and our duties ? Is it not also a false humility that
keeps us from appearing when we should ? that some
times even leads us to shut ourselves up in isolation
against the insults of the world ?

Is not our timidity simply disguised self-love ?
When it would be useful and charitable to speak of
what concerns us, has there been no affectation in our
modesty ?

Are our sentiments of humility sufficiently super
natural to keep us always gentle and patient under
our incurable miseries ?

How do we accept the occasions when our mistakes
and defects are shown up, and are made the subject of
criticisms, jests, and disparagement ?

286 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Are we equally indifferent to praise and blame?
Rather, is not our self-love wounded by any little sharp
word or slight want of consideration? Is not the
regret we feel for our sins in great measure due to
shame and vexation ? Is it not for want of humility
that we know neither how to rise again when we have
fallen, nor how afterwards to turn our faults to good
account ? that we seek to give undue weight to extenu
ating circumstances to others, to ourselves, and even
to our director ?

Have we a holy fear of presumption when it is
required of us to reprimand, direct, command, and
officially to be always in the right ?

Is not our opinion of ourselves too often in direct
opposition to the spirit of S. Paul when he said, " I am
the first of sinners " ; or of S. Vincent de Paul, " I
am worse than all the demons " ; or of other Saints :
" Among the servants of the good God, I am the least
of the least " ?

Do we fully realise the need of prayer before action,
and of thanksgiving after action ?

Finding our actual responsibility already very
heavy, have we no other ambition than that of fulfilling
as well as possible the duties of our present position ?
If our duties are modest, do we consider them above
what we are worth ?

Do we love to work in subordination, to keep for
ourselves the most laborious tasks, and to efface our
selves at the moment of fruition, giving to others the
merit and praises ?

Do we remain calm when we fancy that our superiors
are forgetting or slighting us ? Do we speak of them
only with respect, even when they cause us some pain ?

TRANSFORMATION 287

How do we receive their rebukes, or even their simple
observations ?

Is it with answers, excuses, and murmurs ? or rather
with sincere promises to try to please them better in
future ? Are we not excessively jealous of our personal
independence ?

Do we observe the general rule of only speaking
good of our neighbour? Do we force ourselves to
have as good an opinion of him as possible ?

Do we make up our minds not to think of his imper
fections ? Do we refuse to judge him ? Have we rid
ourselves of the spirit of contradiction ? Are we dis
inclined to argument ? Do we interrupt others or do
we know how to keep a discreet silence ? Do we
willingly give up what is best and most desirable to
others? Do we show constant kindly attention to
everyone, inspired either by respect for them or by the
sincere sense of our own inferiority ?

Is there in js any of that domineering and self-
sufficient spirit before which everyone must give way ?
Like our Divine Master, do we bear gently with those
who do not listen to us, with those who contradict us,
with those who misinterpret our intentions, who deny
us our requests, who scoff at our advice, who treat us
disrespectfully or even disdainfully ?

When we think ourselves to be victims of malice or
injustice, do we not repel those who have wounded us
with anger and impatience? While our Lord was
silent before hatred and calumny — Jesus autem tacebat
— do we not often fall into one of these three faults :
revenge, shown in spiteful words or cutting jests; a
lasting feeling of bitterness entertained towards our
aggressors; or discouragement?

288 THE PATH OF HUMILITY

Cruel as our trials may be, do we realise that, as
sinners, we deserve even worse treatment ? Have we
excused our enemies and prayed for them to God ?

Are we resolved to abandon ourselves henceforth
into the hands of our heavenly Father, that we may
live and die in His blessed peace ?

DIRECTIONS FOR THE CONCLUSION OF
THESE EXERCISES

I

1. First make your resolutions: What have I to
reform ? What have I to acquire ? By what means ?

2. Choose some consideration that impresses you,
and that will help your thoughts upwards, such as :
the Infinity of God in contrast with your nothingness ;
the intimate life of Jesus in you ; or even a recollection
of some humiliating faults ; or yet again, the thought
of your obvious inferiority on some point, etc.

3. Concentrate your effort on some very efficacious
practice, such as : adoring God profoundly before
every prayer ; making yourself always appear humble
and tranquil, even when alone ; moderating your move
ments, your answers, the tone of your voice; applying
yourself to listen to others, etc.

4. Resolve to assent to every requirement, such as :
privations, prayers, a detailed self-accusation in con
fession.

Note again each evening all your omissions.

TRANSFORMATION 289

II

Next spend some moments in looking through this
volume again. Make a note of those meditations and
counsels that seem to you most useful to return to
either each week or each month.

This advice is very important; details are lost,
impressions fade, emotion cools. To become humble
is a very lengthy task. Return to this book often, you
will never take it up again without profit.

Ill

In order worthily to conclude these exercises, try to
think of something more that you may do to mark the
occasion.

Prepare yourself with extra care for your Com
munion, and make a longer thanksgiving than usual.
Let Jesus so take possession of you that you bear Him
with you wherever you go.

If you can, place some flowers and a lighted lamp
before a statue or picture of Him.

Make your visit to the Blessed Sacrament an act of
great solemnity ; show yourself more recollected and
serious. Go as near to the altar as possible, so near
that, speaking in a low voice, Jesus and you could
hear each other if God permitted it Then recite
slowly and from your heart the following prayer :

BEFORE THE TABERNACLE

At the close of these meditations, throughout which
the memory of Thee has followed me, behold me here
again at Thy Feet. I cannot see with my bodily eyes
the crib where Thy humility was born, the poor dwell-

2go THE PATH OF HUMILITY

ing in Nazareth where, for thirty years, it grew in
obscurity, the Calvary that crowned it with opprob
rium and shame. But why should I go so far to seek
it when I have it close at hand ? Why should there
be memories of Thee, O Jesus, when I have Thee
Thyself, God, annihilated here perhaps more than
anywhere else ? Oh ! give me to understand Thy
Eucharist !

The simple and kind humility that makes itself all
to all is what strikes me first. Thou Jovest beautiful
cathedrals that offer Thee the riches of the city; but
Thou lovest just as well the poor churches of the
country, built by the peasants' sweat; Thou dost even
accommodate Thyself to the roof of a cottage or the
hut of a savage. Here, flowers, brilliant lights,
harmonies floating upwards under great vaults,
fervent crowds; yonder, some smoky candles, un
musical voices, a few distracted worshippers ! Thy
great Heart, O Jesus, looks beyond these things. It
sees in them only the expression of feeling; It is
pleased with what is offered when we give what
we can.

Here some ignorant and simple souls offer Thee
vocal prayers, too often mere expressions of the lips;
elsewhere, souls of higher culture make the sweet
melody of interior prayers heard in Thine ears; Thy
great Heart cares only for the sentiment, It is pleased
with what each one tells It, when we say what we know

how to say.

* * *

O Jesus ! what a touching lesson : if I am to be like
Thee in everything I must be humble. There are so
many different ways by which the heart expresses

TRANSFORMATION 291

itself; there are so many little forgetfulnesses that we
must not resent too much !

If I contemplate Thee Thyself, I discover a more
profound humility. Nothing shows me Thy Person,
nothing betrays Thy Presence, no light shines upon
my eyes, no murmur makes itself heard ; not a quiver
stirs the sacred species that contain Thy living Self.
When my faith seeks Thee it finds Thee reduced in
such wise as to amaze it.

What ! for Thy risen Body, the glorious companion
of Thy beauteous Soul, august Temple of Thy
Divinity, for Thy Eucharistic Being, only the tiny
space of a tabernacle ! What do I say ? Of a ciborium !
Again what do I say ? Of a morsel of bread ? — for
even the very smallest Host that is given to us, divided
a hundred times, will in each fragment contain Thee,
Thou Who art so great ! Here Thou art, then, quite
small, without any appearance, reduced to nothing;
Thou hast no voice, Thou remainest motionless ; we
may carry Thee whither we desire : Thy Eucharistic
existence depends upon our will !

* * *

O Jesus, when my reputation is injured, my activity
limited, my resources diminished, even my faculties
crippled, I will nx my gaze on the profound peace of
Thy tabernacle where Thy humility reigns.

But what do I see ? The shame of the past pursues
Thee even to this retreat, where Thou hidest Thyself
in such lowly guise; it does not recoil before Thy
trustful self-surrender. Impiety denies or insults
Thee; the careless lay Thee upon torn or soiled linen,
like a poor man on his pallet ; Thou givest Thyself to
the indifferent; Thou dost not refuse to enter the

THE PATH OF HUMILITY
offensive mouth of the sick ; Thou dost not even thrust
back the sacrilegious; Thou art the humble man
Whom nothing disgusts ! Unable, without continual
miracles, to prevent these infamies, the sad result of
human liberty, Thou dost bear them bravely, that
Thou mayest reach the hearts that love Thee ! Our
love is more dear to Thee than Thy dignity !
. * * *

O Jesus, if someone is thoughtless, inconsiderate, or
ungrateful towards me; if, wrongly or by mischance,
cruel humiliations are imposed upon me, I will carry
myself smiling through these trials, walking towards

Thee !

* * *

O Jesus, by the Holy Communion Thou dost belong
to me and I to Thee. If we are thus one, who shall
separate us ? Thou wilt follow me then through life,
communicating to me unceasingly Thy spirit of
indulgence, of effacement, of constant kindness, the
sweet fruits of humility.

And I, I will see myself in every earthly tabernacle,
near Thee, happy in this intimacy, confused by this
glory. I will keep myself there with Thee in silent
adoration, and when I go away again it will be only,
like Thee, to give myself to others for Thy sake.
* * *

O Jesus, if Thou hadst been less annihilated, Thou
wouldest have adored Thy Father less profoundly;
O Jesus ! if Thou hadst made Thyself less small, I
should never have been able to contain Thee ! What
kindness ! what wisdom ! what a lesson !

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